Fisichella to drive in ETCC at Monza

[S307]

Formula 1 star Giancarlo Fisichella will drive for the works Alfa Romeo team, Autodelta, in the final round of the European Touring Car Championship at Monza next weekend.

In its attempts to win the drivers' title with Gabriele Tarquini, Autodelta will run a five-car squad also featuring Nicola Larini, Roberto Colciago and James Thompson. Fisichella is no stranger to touring cars, having raced for Alfa in the International Touring Car Championship in the past.

"It will be like coming back to his roots," said Autodelta team manager Monica Sipsz, "Because I was his team manager then. And our technical director Marco Calovolo was his race engineer."

Fisichella raced an Alfa 155 V6 for two seasons in 1995 and '96. His F1 career then took off, and this year featured his first victory in the rain-affected Brazilian GP at Interlagos.

BMW's Jorg Muller is tied with Tarquini at the head of the points table going into the final round. The Monza event will also be the venue for Alex Zanardi's return to racing.

[Alan]

Zanardi is driving a specially modified BMW I believe.

[tourringcar fan]

Maybe its just be but I its not very sporting to bring in all these extra drivers maybe go as far as to call it cheating. What does everyone else think?

[Nikh_mg]

As long as it's within the rules then it aint cheating. I dont care about the whol ehelping to win the championship thing, I just wanna see Fisi in a Touring car :D

[Les]

I personally don't like extras brought in at the end of the season. The same sort of thing happened in the GTs - extra non-scoring cars appeared and affected the championship.

[vitesse]

The GT situation was a bit different though- the De Walt TVRs and Peter Cook's Porsche had run on and off all season (although in Cook's case with one of his other 911's, rather than the white one he ran at Brands), rather than being extra cars brought in by a team specifically to support their championship bid, which is what we're seeing here.

I'm not sure how I feel about it- on the one hand seeng Fisi in a tourer has to be worthwhile, but on the other I know what you mean about it affecting the outcome of the championship- Alfa certainly mean to win this don't they......

It seems to go on a lot in touring car racing in Europe- BMW did it once against Audi in the Italian series in the mid-90's- the regular 3-car BMW Italy team were joined by 3 cars from the German series for the last round- Ravaglia, Soper & Winkelhock no less......

[Stuart]

Giancarlo was awesome in the 500bhp Alfa 155 ITC car... he can handle a 800bhp F1 in pretty fine style too...
Put him in a 300bhp Alfa 156.... oops....
Maybe Giancarlo and Gabrielle could team up for a BTCC assault?
Heres hoping...

As for Mr Colciago - hero to zero in the jerk of a steering wheel.
Its been a very long time since I saw anything so blatant!

[Alan]

I have just watched the highlights Stuart, and as you say Colciago's effort was rather blatant.

However - I must have missed something re the outstanding appeal against Tarquini. What is that all about? Please enlighten me someone - ie what happened and when/where?

[V6.]

tarquini pushed huisman going into the chicane lap 1, both huisman and prilaux went off as a result, prob that

[Alan]

Thanks V6 - I did see that but didn't put it down as a major naughty myself!!! Shows what I know eh!:D :D