Giancarlo broke in to F1 with Minardi in 1996 after being their test driver, he then moved to the Jordan team in '97 and showed glimpses of excellence in a fractious season with teammate Ralf Schumacher.
His off-season move to Benetton for '98 team was a controversial one with Benetton chief Flavio Briatore taking the Jordan team to court to secure his services. In his first season with the Italian outfit he got off to a shaky start but slowly found his feet towards the end of the season including a pole position at the A1-Ring in Austria.
Much vaunted as a young pretender to the F1 crown a couple of seasons back, Giancarlo has (thus far) failed to show the sort of class needed to reach the highest level. However, a lot of this is down to the poor equipment at his disposal. 1999 brought a couple of promising performances - most notably Canada.
For 2000, Fisichella will remain with Benetton. Pre-season testing indicates that the package should be a little more competitive, perhaps the Italian will finally get to show how good he is.