51-year-old was once considered ‘the real deal’ in F1 but never lived up to the hype

There were very high hopes for Italian star Giancarlo Fisichella when he first took to the grid with Minardi in 1996.

He had already won the Italian Formula 3 Championship and after a year of testing with the Italian minnows was ready to take on the likes of Ferrari and McLaren.

Speaking on the Autosport Podcast, journalist Damien Smith talked about his time at Benetton and the general feeling around Fisichella as he entered the sport.

There’s never an easy time to break into Formula 1, but if there was, it was arguably the early 1990s.

Pre-qualifying was required because there were so many manufacturers and teams would frequently turn up for a single session on a Friday morning before heading home again if they weren’t fast enough.

Unfortunately for Fisichella, he narrowly missed out on his period of Formula 1’s history but managed to earn a seat with Minardi alongside his commitments in the International Touring Car Championship.

He recorded a highest finish of eighth during his disrupted first campaign, but that was enough to earn him a move to Jordan.

Fisichella drove brilliantly for Eddie Jordan’s team and started to show the potential that many in Formula 1 were raving about.

Subsequent spells at Benetton, Sauber, Renault and Force India followed as well as a brief return to Jordan.

He fittingly finished his career with Ferrari and while he won three Grand Prix during his time in F1 including a chaotic race in Brazil, it was always felt he never quite reached his potential.

Fisichella considered the ‘real deal’ before entering Formula 1

Fisichella was named eighth by Damien Smith in his list of all-time best Benetton drivers and when asked why he wasn’t higher, he said: “I think bad luck, timing on his part really that he joined the team at the wrong time, just as it was on the downward curve.

“The people who worked with [Giancarlo] Fisichella, one thing that I remember, I was an office junior at Autosport at the time Fisichella was coming through, so I used to listen intently to the conversations going on in the office.

“Your deputy editor Marcus Simmons, he was covering Formula 3 and he used to rave about Fisichella and people did.

“People thought Fisichella was the real deal in terms of the next great thing coming through and he was really fast.

“I think at Benetton he had podiums but he was never going to take a win in the cars that he was driving I don’t think, the team had lost its way by that time.”

Several world-class drivers and cult heroes outrank Fisichella at Benetton

Fisichella may have had a very solid Formula 1 career, but he was never going to finish ahead of the likes of Michael Schumacher and Nelson Piquet in the ranking of the best Benetton drivers.

British pair Martin Brundle and Johnny Herbert also feature above him, as does Gerhard Berger and Jean Alesi.

A testament to Fisichella’s ability is probably best epitomised by his time at Renault.

He finally had a championship-winning car at his disposal but was never a match for Fernando Alonso.

The Spaniard more than doubled his points tally in 2005 and nearly achieved that feat again in 2006.

The 51-year-old Italian is still involved in F1, with his latest project seeing him trying to get an exotic new venue onto the racing calendar.