Felipe Massa is an odd soul. Despite having fought to the wire for the 2008 drivers' title, Formula One's chief scamp - who is incredibly popular in the paddock thanks to a cheeky sense of humour and a friendly and open personality - has spent his career being judged against his team-mates and found lacking in comparison.
Last year, Massa and Valtteri Bottas finished sixth and fifth in the drivers' standings, with 121 points for the Brazilian and 136 for the Finn. Each man collected two third-place finishes, and while Bottas logged a DNS in Australia, Massa was DSQed in Brazil. Massa had two retirements to Bottas' one, but Massa was the Williams driver who collected the most finishes in the points in 2015.
Despite the parity in their performances over the course of the season - only the Red Bull driver pairing ended last year with a smaller points margin - Bottas was heralded as one of the drivers of the year, while Massa was judged by many to have benefitted from his team-mate's misses.
Massa is far from alone in the shadows. While Nico Rosberg had a perfect end to the 2015 season, for much of the year he found himself compared unfavourably to Lewis Hamilton, who had managed to overturn the German's 2014 qualifying advantage and used it to run away with the season.
Rosberg was judged to have underperformed in what was undoubtedly the best car on the grid, which is an awkward state of affairs for a driver who finished second in the drivers' championship, nearly 50 points clear of third place and with six wins and nine podiums to his name. Whether 2016 sees a repeat of last spring's form or a continuation of his winning streak remains to be seen, but Rosberg deserves to be judged on his own merits before being compared to a team-mate with three world titles under his belt.
This season affords us with a host of opportunities to celebrate the underdog - in addition to those established but often underrated drivers who are familiar faces in the F1 paddock, we also have two new teams (ish) in the form of Haas and Renault, both of which should be celebrated simply for taking the plunge and committing to Formula One with significant programmes.
Renault may have decades of F1 experience and two highly rated young drivers, but they are also faced with the task of rising from the ashes of what was, by the end, an underfunded and under-resourced Lotus. Anything more than simple recovery is success in this season, with championship battles a distant point on a sensible roadmap.
Fellow newbie Haas comes in with a billionaire owner and a car considered by most to be the Ferrari B-spec, plus a proven talent in the form of Romain Grosjean. While all the signs are good for the team in the long term - both Gene Haas and team principal Gunther Steiner did a good job managing expectations in Barcelona, and know the size of the challenge they've taken on - this year is still going to involve a getting-to-know-you period in which the team gels with each other and with F1 itself. Don't expect miracles, but do expect slick professionalism and real commitment.
In this era where the sport's masters are being publicly critical of their golden goose, and in which the media are constantly accused of highlighting F1's ills, 2016 is the season in which I propose that we celebrate the small victories: the point-less but hard-fought battles at the back of the pack, an underrated driver out-performing his team-mate, those ballsy drives cut short by mechanical error...
There is much to celebrate in Formula One, if only we take the time to look past the glory and remember to also praise the guts.