Giancarlo Fisichella
From Frikipedia
aka "Fisi", "Mr Lucky".
Giancarlo Fisichella is a very 'appy F1 driver, currently employed by Renault, presumably through some sort of positive discrimination directive that the FIA passed when nobody was looking.
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Early Career
Fisi arrived in Formula One in 1996, after having bagged a richly deserved drive with grid-fillers Minardi to race at the back. Sadly, he lost his drive mid-season to someone with a bigger wallet than him, which remains the only time in his career than he has lost a drive without a good reason.
For 1997, Jordan came a-calling, and he linked up with the ladies favourite, Ralf Schumacher. He crushed Ralf pretty much completely, but rather than build a relationship with the team, he decided to head off for Benetton, who had just lost their only good component when Renault stopped making engines.
Many years of toil followed, during which time he saw off a veritable Who's Who? of team-mates, including human space elevator, Alexander Wurz and Jenson Button, in the days before the hype crushed his soul. During his time there, the Benetton cars warped back into a works Renault team, and the quality of clothing merchandise dipped.
With the Renault cars now looking halfway decent, Flavio Briatore decided to cut his losses and install Jarno Trulli alongside Button for 2002, due to the extra sponsorship money Trulli brought from Night Nurse. Fisi still failed to take the hint, and instead returned to Jordan, who had by now had their brief period in the F1 sun and were sinking to the back of the grid like a stone with a rock tied to it.
The First Win!
The 2002 Jordan was naff. The 2003 car even more so, but at the 2003 Brazilian GP, thanks to a lot of rain, some inadequate drainage at turn three which caused most of the field to spin out on a river of water and Fernando Alonso's race ending spot of hara-kiri as he drove through the debris from Mark Webber's wrecked car at full speed and nearly decapitated himself on a stray tyre, he found himself on the podium. Albiet one step below Kimi Raikkonen, who had mumbled his way ahead shortly before the race was stopped.
The powers-that-be weren't happy with Kimi's post-race press conference, however. After a thrilling race, most casual fans switched on to the sport were switched back off again as Kimi "rrrrm-hhhhm-dmmmm"-ed his way through a series of facile questions. Fisi's answers were far better, so the organisers decided on a convoluted "count-back" method to decide the actual result prior to the red flag and gave the win to Fisi.
This wasn't enough for him to stick with Jordan, however, and he buggered off to a year of banality with Sauber soon after.
The Renault Years III or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Having My Arse Handed To Me By Alonso
Before life at Sauber forced him into a crippling beige suit, Fisi returned to Renault once again for 2005, partnered by dances-like-your-dad-at-a-wedding Spaniard, Fernando Alonso. This proved to conversely be the high point and low point of Fisi's career.
Although the fact that he was now in a proper race-winning car meant he could win something very occasionally, and actually get to stand on top of the podium this time, Alonso tended to win a lot more often, and Fisi began to look rather slow.
Usually found himself charged with supporting Alonso's title challenge from the mid-point of the season, which would involve him crashing or spinning out of the race, then getting shouted at by Briatore.
For 2007, Alonso found that the Renault livery clashed with his beard, so he ran off to McLaren. Fisi was retained for no reason other than to allow the team a bit of parity, and got a new team mate in Heikki Kovalainen. Mercifully for Fisi's career, Heikki seems to be some sort of gammy-faced spazmerchant as opposed to a racing driver, so his career may well yet have another thrillingly average chapter.
The Future
Don't get ahead of yourself just yet, Giancarlo.
