Giancarlo Fisichella opens up on Ferrari pole at Monza and recalls past stories from Italian GP. Giancarlo Fisichella opens up on Ferrari pole at Monza.

On the sidelines of the qualifying session for the 2023 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix, former Formula 1 driver Giancarlo Fisichella was interviewed by the Italian daily newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport to comment on Scuderia Ferrari’s Pole Position with Carlos Sainz and to share some anecdotes from his time at the Monza circuit.

Here is an excerpt from his words:

Giancarlo Fisichella’s comments:

“It’s always nice to come back here to Monza, where I have so many memories. And then it was a really beautiful qualifying session, beautiful, beautiful. Played on the edge of hundredths, on the perfect lap. Carlos Sainz, Max Verstappen, and Charles Leclerc are very close. Well done to all three of them. And well done to Ferrari, which was competitive. We had fun and were truly excited,” Giancarlo Fisichella said for La Gazzetta dello Sport.

Then he added, “After Friday’s practice, I said to myself, ‘Who knows, let’s see.’ After Saturday morning’s practice, I said, ‘Top two rows for sure.’ I was confident about the front row, even though Max Verstappen always scared me, of course…”. And speaking of the Dutchman: “He and Red Bull have become a combination like we’ve seen in the past: the right driver with the right car. It’s time to beat him. It’s possible to beat him; today Carlos Sainz proved it. And the same thing can be done in the race.”

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Finally, Giancarlo Fisichella talked about his experiences in the racing world, starting with his victory in 1993: “It was a Lottery Grand Prix. I had a prize of six billion lire assigned to someone I never knew who it was. And who never called me. But that’s okay. And then, 1997, when I started third with Jordan and finished fourth in the race. And then, of course, the podium in 2005, seventeen years after Michele Alboreto, who had been the last until then. Oh, I even won in GT here. What’s it like to stand on that podium? It’s unique. Unbelievable. Among the Formula 1 podiums, it’s perhaps the most beautiful. Certainly, it is for us, in Italy, with all those people and those flags along the straight as far as the eye can see… It’s a wonderful thing. It would have been the ultimate dream to win here with Ferrari. But it didn’t happen…”.