44 Facts About Giancarlo Fisichella

Giancarlo Fisichella, known as Fisico, Giano or Fisi, is an Italian professional racing driver, captain of the official Nazionale Piloti association football team.

Giancarlo Fisichella has driven in Formula One for Minardi, Jordan, Benetton, Sauber, Renault, Force India and Ferrari.

Giancarlo Fisichella was brought into the Renault team to replace fellow Italian Jarno Trulli, and won his first race with the team in Australia in 2005.

On 17 June 2012 Giancarlo Fisichella won the GTE Pro division of the Le Mans 24hrs for AF Corse and followed this up with the Manufacturers' title in the WEC at the end of the season.

Giancarlo Fisichella finished runner up in 1993, and in 1994 he won the championship, following race victories in Monaco and Macau.

Giancarlo Fisichella left open-wheel racing briefly in 1995 and 1996, driving for Alfa Romeo in the International Touring Car Championship.

Giancarlo Fisichella gained his first podium finish at the 1997 Canadian Grand Prix, and went on to finish higher in the points standings than his teammate.

Giancarlo Fisichella was able to show his talent again at the rain-soaked Belgian Grand Prix in which he finished a commendable second behind Michael Schumacher.

Giancarlo Fisichella was then able to add only two more points to his total in the second half of the year as Benetton lost ground on their competition.

Giancarlo Fisichella did score some points finishes, including second at Montreal, and again came close to a victory in the European Grand Prix, until he spun off whilst in the lead.

Giancarlo Fisichella's season was to follow a similar pattern in 2000.

Giancarlo Fisichella again gained some surprise podium finishes early in the year, but Benetton's poor second half of the season meant that he failed to score any more points.

Renault had purchased the Benetton team after the start of the 2000 season, but their radical engine design meant Benetton had an uncompetitive 2001 car, and as a result, Giancarlo Fisichella was battling for much of the season with teams such as Minardi and Prost.

Giancarlo Fisichella scored seven points in 2002, while comfortably outpacing new teammate Takuma Sato, although the Jordan-Honda car of that year was never truly competitive.

Several days later, though, the FIA determined that Giancarlo Fisichella had already begun his 56th lap before the red flag, meaning that he, and not Raikkonen, had been leading the race two laps before its premature end, awarding the Italian his first F1 victory.

Giancarlo Fisichella was the only F1 driver to have won a race without having stood atop the podium.

Giancarlo Fisichella collected the winner's trophy at the next race at Imola.

Unhappy with the Jordan team's performance, Giancarlo Fisichella moved to Sauber in 2004 in the hope of greater results, and of using the team as a way of gaining access to, and a drive for, 2003 World Champions Ferrari, who supplied re-badged engines to the Sauber team.

Giancarlo Fisichella drove well all year, comfortably outpacing teammate Felipe Massa for much of the season.

Giancarlo Fisichella was overtaken and lost the lead on the final lap of the Japanese Grand Prix by McLaren driver Kimi Raikkonen, despite his race engineer urging him to avoid letting Raikkonen past, which earned him heavy criticism from the press.

Some strong results in the second half of the 2006 season, including finishing ahead of Alonso at the US Grand Prix, enabled Giancarlo Fisichella to obtain his best ever results: Fourth in the World Drivers' Championship with 72 points, one win, and five podium finishes.

In 2007 Giancarlo Fisichella became Renault's lead driver after the departure of Fernando Alonso.

Giancarlo Fisichella's teammate was the team's former test driver, the young Finn Heikki Kovalainen, who was replaced as test driver by Nelson Piquet Jr.

Giancarlo Fisichella was disqualified from the Canadian Grand Prix, along with Ferrari's Felipe Massa, for exiting the pit lane while the traffic light was showing red, the purpose of which is to prevent cars rejoining the race ahead of the safety car.

Giancarlo Fisichella later stated that he had been busy avoiding other cars in the pit lane and had simply not noticed the red light.

Giancarlo Fisichella crashed into the Super Aguri of Anthony Davidson at the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix which broke his rear suspension and forced him to retire.

Giancarlo Fisichella was announced as the number one driver alongside Adrian Sutil for the Force India F1 team for the 2008 season on 10 January 2008.

Giancarlo Fisichella finished the season pointless, as did the Force India team.

On 29 August 2009, making the most of some very effective technical upgrades from Force India, Giancarlo Fisichella recorded the team's first pole position at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Giancarlo Fisichella went on to score Force India's first points in Formula One with a strong second-place finish behind Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.

On 3 September 2009, an official press statement confirmed Giancarlo Fisichella would be released from Force India to drive for Ferrari at the Italian Grand Prix, his home race.

Giancarlo Fisichella signed a contract as Ferrari's driver for the remainder of the 2009 season and reserve driver for 2010 on 3 September 2009.

Giancarlo Fisichella remained Ferrari's reserve driver for 2010 but had been keen to keep racing for a different team.

Giancarlo Fisichella admitted that Sauber was a strong option and was strongly linked to the team, however his hopes of driving for Sauber in 2010 were ended when Pedro de la Rosa was confirmed as the team's second driver.

Giancarlo Fisichella was linked to a possible return to Force India but the team confirmed former teammate Adrian Sutil and fellow Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi.

Giancarlo Fisichella's helmet was white with two yellow and green lines with a blue diamond on the center of the lines running on each half of the helmet and around the visor; on the top there was a blue drop.

In 2004, whilst racing for Sauber, Giancarlo Fisichella became the first driver in Formula 1 to have his HANS device painted in his colours, Massa followed soon after and then the rest of the grid had theirs painted.

Giancarlo Fisichella made his sports car racing debut in 2010 by driving for AF Corse in a Ferrari F430 in the Le Mans Series as well as briefly in the American Le Mans Series as part of the Ferrari deal he signed in mid-2009.

In 2012 Giancarlo Fisichella was again with AF Corse and took part in the 2012 World Endurance Championship He won the season opener and came 2nd in the 6hrs of Spa.

Giancarlo Fisichella had the honor of driving the last stage of the competition.

Giancarlo Fisichella then returned to America and won at Road America and Virginia International Raceway, he currently lies 8th in the GT Le Mans standings.

Giancarlo Fisichella is related to the so named Italian noble family, forming part of the Sicilian nobility.

Giancarlo Fisichella is a supporter of Italian Serie A side Roma, and captain of the official Nazionale Piloti association football team.

Giancarlo Fisichella has a cameo appearance in the 2019 film The Art of Racing in the Rain, playing a Scuderia Ferrari crew member in the closing scenes.