Giancarlo Fisichella was considered by some to be the rising star of Formula One when he entered the scene. Many critics considered him to be a future world champion.
However he often ended up being indulged in the pinnacle which would see him to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time. His move to Benetton in his earlier years, a race winning car, a championship contending car, slowly, but steadily dripped down the midfield.
Then came his move back to Jordan, and sadly this saw Fisichella drop down the pecking order, and he was merely making up the numbers. Despite this, Jordan gave Giancarlo his first victory in 2003, which under the dismal wet conditions at Sao Paulo, where not even Michael Schumacher could keep his car out of the barriers. It was indeed Fisichella who fought through, before a red flag and a rollback awarded him his first victory.
This meant that Fisichella whilst in his prime years, made a step up to Sauber in2004, and with 7 years of experience under his belt, he was consistently among the points throughout this season, and outperformed his rookie team-mate Felipe Massa.
These performances saw Fisichella return to Flavio's threshold, at none other than the Renault works team, replacing fellow Italian Jarno Trulli. However his years at Renault were to be overshadowed by his team-mate Fernando Alonso who won the drivers championship in 2005 and 2006, thus establishing Fisi as a firm number 2.
Was Fisichella overrated, or did he merely underperform in a race winning car? His final season at Renault in 2007, again saw him struggle as he was outperformed by rookie team-mate, Heikki Kovalainen. His dream of winning the championship was going up in flames, and racing for 11 seasons, his future was slowly in doubt, as he failed to renew his contract with Renault, and had to settle for a low budget team at Force India for 2008.
He endured his worst season in 08, failing to score any points, but with the best finish of the season in 10th. Slowly but surely, Fisichella's career was coming to a close. But it was his experience which meant that Force India required him to help develop the team to move up the pecking order. In Spa 09, Fisichella took a surprise pole position, and awarded Force India's first points and only podium position to date.
Then his dream came true as the call from Ferrari which never came in his earlier years, came for the last 5 races of his career, however he failed to score any points in a difficult car.
Through his topsy turvy career, Giancarlo Fisichella has never made the break, or has been on the edge of doing so. But as Martin Brundle once said, he "underperformed in a good car, and overperformed in a poor car".
This leaves us with the question - "Was Giancarlo Fisichella Underrated?"
This guest article was written by Benazir Bhutto if you wish to publish your own news, articles or reviews please submit them here.
