Today, the FIA ruled that Giancarlo Fisichella had won last weekends Brazilian Grand Prix.

The wet race was prematurely ended by a big crash involving Jaguar's Mark Webber and the Renault of Fernando Alonso. Just a lap before, Fisichella had taken over the lead from McLaren's Kimi Raikkonen. The race was then stopped in lap 55.

Normal regulation states that when a race is stopped by a red flag, the racing order of two laps before that moment will be used as the final result, which meant Raikkonen would be declared the winner. Confusion was caused about the position of the Italian when the red flag was shown. The question whether he passed the line before or after the race was stopped was today answered in favour of Fisichella.

In Jordans 200th Grand Prix and his 110th Grand Prix, Fisichella took his first and long awaited win. Just like rising stars Webber and Alonso, the 1994 Italian F3 champion also made his debut with Minardi - in 1996. A year later Jordan employed him. In 1998 he moved to Benetton and in Austria he started from pole position.

In 2002 he returned to the Jordan team and finally won his first Grand Prix last weekend. With nine other podium finishes in his career, he scored a total of 92 points. Currently fourth in the championship, he will be eager to beat the 6th place he had in 2000 with Benetton.

Sitting behind the car, would Giancarlo ever have thought he would win a F1 race 9 years later? At the 1994 Zanvoort F3 Masters F3 he finished 9th in a race won by Gareth Rees. Norberto Fontana who finished 5th was the only other finisher that made it to F1. Among the retirements were Riccardo Rosset, Alexander Wurz, Ralf Schumacher and Jan Magnussen.

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pic by Sutton