Grace vs. Laura Marieee: Fisichella Retires

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Not every season ends with the retirement of a trusted and valued friend. But when the time has passed and the memories are long—it becomes such a year. With the retirement of F1 driver Giancarlo Fisichella (Fisi), I asked the two females of F1B to take a “pro” and “con” position.

The idea was to give you, the reader, a great look at both sides of the coin. A review of the career that was overwhelming to some and underwhelming to others.

What better way to do that than offer the F1B women the opportunity to slug it out in fine fashion. Laura will take the “pro” position with her panache, poetry, and British charm while Grace will take the “con” position with her…snark. Grace quickly opted for the “con” position. It seems reasonable as she’s not the biggest Fisi fan.

Be careful, no matter who you agree with—they are both terrific and we couldn’t be more elated to offer the first joint op-ed featuring the two most beautiful parts of F1B.

Laura Gets the Discussion Started

So that’s it, the 2009 season is over! And the sad thing is, for many of the drivers, they have no idea who they’ll be driving for next season, if indeed whether they’ll be in F1 at all.

In particular, Fisichella is one of those. After switching from a drive with Force India to Ferrari for the last five races of the 2009 season, it looks unlikely that he will drive in F1 again next year as he will be Ferrari’s reserve driver.

So, seeing as he’s been in the sport for quite some time, Todd thought it would be a great idea to team Grace and I up to talk about Fisi, and how much he’s achieved—or not—and how much he’ll be missed—or perhaps not in Grace’s case. So I’ll do what I usually do, and Grace will chip in with her usual snark…

When Fisi was confirmed as Massa’s stand in at Ferrari from Monza onwards, for him it was a dream come true, and for the fans it was a case of, “Yay, Badoer out. At least Fisi will be able to do a better job.”

But it didn’t exactly happen like that. After qualifying on pole at Spa and matching the pace of Kimi, in what was later to become his last race with Force India, it seemed fitting he should get the chance to drive for the Prancing Horse. But since his move, he hasn’t been able to deliver, and he has regularly propped up the back of the grid, and indeed the back of the pack during the race.

While driving for Ferrari has been a dream for Fisi, it hasn’t been quite what the fans were expecting. His last race for Force India was a sign of just how good Fisi can potentially be, and with a good performance under his belt, many thought he would jump into the Ferrari and be straight into Q3 each race, and scoring as many points as possible. It hasn’t happened.

Fisi has said he has no regrets in joining Ferrari, which of course came right at the time when he was starting to achieve more with Force India. In many ways you have to hand it to him. To sacrifice the success he was beginning to have with an up and coming team, when Badoer was proving how difficult it was to be successful in a Ferrari you’ve never driven before, is impressive. There is also the fact that both Force India drivers—Sutil and Fisi’s replacement Liuzzi—were considerably better than Fisi in Monza, in both qualifying and the race. Even Liuzzi’s retirement simply being down to a reliability issue rather than driver error. Although Fisi finished, Liuzzi had been running ahead of him before his retirement.

Of course Fisi has had some great moments in F1, and this season he’ll be remembered for that impressive pole at Spa and his eventual second place after holding on to Kimi throughout the race.

All in all, during his F1 career he has had three wins, his first in Brazil in 2003 for Jordan. In 2005, he scored his first pole in the season opener in Melbourne, and went on to win the race for Renault, however, despite five more podiums, it was his teammate, Alonso, who went on to be more successful. In 2006 he claimed his third win and finished fourth in the championship standings.

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