FISICHELLA PLANNING S5000 RETURN

Giancarlo Fisichella planning S5000 return – Photo: InSyde Media

Although only brief, Giancarlo Fisichella very much enjoyed turning laps in his Garry Rogers Motorsport run S5000 car and is planning to return to the Australian championship in the near future.

By DAN McCARTHY

The 2005 Australian Grand Prix winner returned to the scene of his second Formula 1 race win at Albert Park and competed against an accomplished list of drivers including fellow former Ferrari Formula 1 driver Rubens Barrichello and current Williams reserve driver Jack Aitken.

Fisi as he is commonly known, told Auto Action that he wants to return to the Australian VHT S5000 Championship later on this year.

“I hope to come back probably for Bathurst and I’m looking forward for it,” he said.

The Bathurst International event is scheduled to take place in November at the famous Mount Panorama Circuit, in which Barrichello has already entered.

When AA asked Fisichella if he is looking at doing more S5000 events he said that he would like to as long as it doesn’t clash with his World Endurance Championship commitments.

“I’m looking forward to doing some other (S5000) events but it depends on the organisation and it depends on my races in Europe,” he explained.

The three-time F1 race winner told AA that he enjoyed his time behind the wheel of the new V8 powered open-wheel series but would have liked some more testing prior to the event.

“It would be nice to have a bit more testing before doing an event like this, because coming here and doing 20 minutes of free practice and then straight away 20 minutes of qualifying it’s quite tough,” he said.

Broken front wing for Giancarlo Fisichella – Photo: InSyde Media

Early on in practice Fisichella ran off the circuit and lost a front wing flap, this caused him to suffer from understeer for the rest of the session. The nose was fixed for qualifying and he ended the session ninth only 1s off pole, considering the limited running the former Renault and Jordan driver was pleased with the time.

“I know I still have a lot to learn with the car, the feeling with the car wasn’t 100 percent and it wasn’t easy but I think I did a quite good lap time (in Qualifying) with some issues, not too bad.”

Sadly the event was called early due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus, although the Italian feels it was the right decision.

“It is disappointing, but the problem is quite serious in Italy and everywhere in the world now, it is getting worse and worse so I think this is the right decision to stop everything,” he said.

“Maybe it was better to think about it before we came here but anyway that is life and everything is done.”

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