13/03/2006
NEWS STORY
Renault Driver Giancarlo Fisichella turned the airwaves blue on Sunday, when it became clear he was suffering another dose of the bad luck that always seem to dog him and not his Spanish teammate.
As the Italian lost ground, with an engine problem, race fans around the world heard him issue a string of expletives over the team radio.
Giancarlo had already suffered a mysterious problem with an ancillary engine component in qualifying, that robbed him of approximately 50 bhp, and in spite of the team's best efforts to resolve this overnight, and the initial belief that it had been cured, the problem recurred in the race.
The performance deficit the Roman had to contend with was clear from the speed traps: he was the second slowest car, at 297.3 kph compared to a quickest speed of 308.3 kph for teammate Alonso.
In the circumstances, the Italian did an exceptional job to set the lap-times he did, as Pat Symonds made clear after the race: "We have apologised to Giancarlo for the engine problem, which left him something like fifty horsepower down from his maximum. But when you take that into account, he was driving an exceptional race."
As for Fisichella, he was able to rationalise the experience quite neatly: "Last year, I won the first race then had a difficult season. This year, I hope it will be the other way round - a bad race then a lot of good results!" Starting with this weekend in Sepang.