Giancarlo
Fisichella

Giancarlo Fisichella was born in Rome on 14 January 1973. He started out in karting and moved up to Italian Formula Three in 1992. In 1994 he won the title with RC Motorsport and also won the Formula Three race at Monaco.

He made his Formula One debut for Minardi at the 1996 Australian Grand Prix and started eight races that year. In 1997 he joined Jordan, took his first podium in Canada and finished second at Spa, ending the season eighth in the championship. At Benetton, from 1998 to 2001, he claimed his first pole position in Austria in 1998 and finished sixth in the 2000 standings. He was third in Belgium in 2001. After that he returned to Jordan.

At the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix he was initially classified second. Several days later the FIA corrected the result and he was declared the winner. In 2004 he drove for Sauber and finished eleventh in the championship. At Renault in 2005 and 2006 he was Fernando Alonso's team-mate. He won in Melbourne in 2005 and ended the year fifth. In 2006 he won in Malaysia from pole position and took fourth in the championship with 72 points, his best result. Renault won the constructors' title in both seasons. In 2007 he finished eighth.

He drove for Force India in 2008 and 2009. In Belgium in 2009 he took the team's first pole position and finished second, which was also Force India's first podium and first points. For the last five races of that season he replaced the injured Felipe Massa at Ferrari, and he stayed on as reserve driver in 2010. Over 229 starts he won three races, reached the podium 19 times and took four pole positions.

Afterwards he raced sports cars for AF Corse. In 2011 he and Gianmaria Bruni won the drivers' title in the GTE Pro class of the Le Mans Series. He won the GTE Pro class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2012 and 2014, both times with Bruni and Toni Vilander. In 2022 he took part in one round of the S5000 series at Adelaide.

Source: Wikipedia, “Giancarlo Fisichella”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.