Ferrari's unsung hero Felipe Massa blames what happened in the Singapore Grand Prix in 2008 for missing out on the title, but now he wants to look forward and find a team where he is No1

Felipe Massa has announced that he would rather not drive next season than be forced to play second fiddle to another driver, despite having become liked and respected in the paddock for his dedication to the team game during his career. His comments are a stark reminder of the potential problems Ferrari may face in 2014, having paired Fernando Alonso with Kimi Raikkonen, neither of whom will be likely to slip into the role Massa has performed so dutifully since 2006.

Speaking in the buildup to this weekend's Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka when asked if, in his next drive, he would wish to be the No1 driver in a new team, Massa was unequivocal. "I want that, yes," he said. "I will do everything I can to achieve that." He added that he would not accept a drive where he was not the team leader.

The determination is understandable. During his time at Ferrari he has been paired with some formidable drivers. His debut was alongside Michael Schumacher and three years with Raikkonen followed, including the incident where he was hit by a spring that had come loose from the Brawn of Rubens Barrichello in 2009, before Alonso joined in 2010.

With the exception of 2008, when he almost took the title, he has been largely in their shadows. Indeed his drives alongside Alonso were marked by some very public exhibitions of his position as the No2 driver, particularly when being told to move over for the Spaniard at Hockenheim in 2010 to the heart-wrenching refrains of engineer Rob Smedley's apologies and taking a team-imposed five-place grid drop at the US Grand Prix last year.

Speaking about the latter incident at the time, the team principal, Stefano Domenicali, might well have summed up much of Massa's tenure with Ferrari and the debt they owed him. "When you work for the Ferrari team you know the team was the centre of the decision," he said. "I have to thank Felipe for that."

Although he is unsigned, the future he has envisaged places himself, finally, at the very centre of any squad, one that he would hope to build around himself. "A team that can build a stronger car, a stronger working environment," he said. "A team that has the possibility to create something, that would be interesting."

Central to which would be to have a team-mate ready to make moves on his behalf at last. "At the right time, yes," he said, when asked if he would expect a future colleague to fulfil the role he has played so diligently. "Not at the first race and we are fighting, no. That's not fair."

The difficulty facing the 32-year-old is that finding this team, given his own strictures may be tricky. There are realistically only two seats he would take, one alongside Romain Grosjean at Lotus or one of the two potential seats at Sauber currently occupied by Nico Hülkenberg and Esteban Gutiérrez. Massa would no doubt prefer Lotus but they seem to favour Hülkenberg, who is in fine form and wants Lotus to make up their minds by the end of the month.

Although the Brazilian believes he will have a decision by then too, there remains a chance he will be without a drive at all next year. That would probably leave those 38.9sec in 2008 when he thought he was world champion – before Lewis Hamilton passed Timo Glock at the final race in Brazil to take the title by a single point – as the closest he has come to being No1.

As at the time, when he gave touching and gracious congratulations to Hamilton, the race holds little rancour for Massa. But he remains outspoken in his condemnation of the cheating at Singapore that season which he believes really cost him the title. "I lost the championship in the other races," he said. "Maybe the race I feel that we lost the championship was Singapore. What happened in Singapore is unacceptable, it cannot happen, I lost the championship there."

Massa had started from pole in Singapore and had built up a three-second lead over Hamilton when Nelson Piquet Jr's Renault crashed and brought out the safety car, at which point Massa pitted. His crew prematurely released him from the box with the fuel hose still attached and farce ensued as they chased him down the pit lane trying to remove it.

Piquet subsequently revealed he had been ordered to crash by his team to improve the chances of his team-mate Alonso, who won the race. Massa rejoined at the back and was then given a drive-through for unsafe release and finished 13th – out of the points – while Hamilton finished third with six.

"What happened there is like in football when you have a match where they pay the referee," said Massa. "We see matches in football where they see they pay the referee and the team that loses goes to court. In Formula One nothing happens."

After the incident the Renault team principal, Flavio Briatore, was banned for life, a decision that was subsequently overturned, and the engineer Pat Symonds banned for five years, also overturned; although he agreed to remain outside the sport until 2013, he is now chief technical officer for Williams. Renault received a two-year suspended disqualification.

This is cold comfort for a man who missed the title by the slenderest of margins but while it clearly still rankles, it is the future that concerns him as he goes into his final five races for Ferrari. "I will never cry for what has happened," he said. "I feel sorry but we need to think forward.

"I am sure I can give a lot to another team. I am also happy about this situation, I am happy to change. I am happy to start from zero, to create, to restart."