Giancarlo Fisichella

Giancarlo Fisichella restated his case for a top line drive in 2005 with a strong showing at the European GP, where he charged from the back of the grid to sixth. His Bridgestone tyres leant themselves to a two-stop strategy, but nevertheless the Italian did a great job with an ultra heavy fuel load.

Fisichella has done good things for Sauber this year, although circumstances have sometimes disguised his true form. A great run at Imola earned only ninth, after a battle with Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren, but his pace went largely unnoticed.

With so many drivers vying for the attention of Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Head, a solid points finish at the 'Ring was just what he needed. It remains to be seen how high he is on their infamous list, but he has to be somewhere near the top.

An engine failure in practice forced the Swiss team to switch to abandon qualifying, run heavy fuel load, and let Giancarlo start from the back in full attack mode. It seemed to work pretty well.

"Everything was perfect, I think," he says. "We knew there was a possibility to do that strategy. On Friday and Saturday there was a good behaviour from the tyres, a good behaviour of the car balance. Considering that the engine blew up we decided to put a lot of fuel in, not do the second qualifying session, and do the start of the race with new tyres. All the choices we made we perfect."

He had a bit of luck at the start. The Williams drivers took care of both themselves and Cristiano da Matta, and Giancarlo was able to take full advantage of the chaos to emerge from the first lap in 14th place. After that he pushed hard throughout.

"Of course, you need some luck, obviously! But I think I did a very good race. Our pace was reasonably good. At the beginning it was difficult, because I was running lots of fuel. But when the fuel load was less the car was getting better and better, and I was confident that I would enjoy driving it."

For a while he enjoyed a battle with fellow two-stopper Mark Webber: "Mark had less fuel than me and at that time he was a bit better than me. In the last stint I was quicker than him, easily."

The stats make for interesting reading. Giancarlo's first stint was a marathon 24 laps, two more than David Coulthard, and six more than Webber. He ultimately set the seventh fastest lap, just 0.3s off the Renaults, and quicker than any by Juan Pablo Montoya. The Colombian car might have taken a knock at the start, but he had a clear track for much of the day and had little to lose as he tried to catch up.

Nurburgring went some way to making up for Monaco, where Giancarlo's day ended early with that spectacular unsighted flip over the back of Coulthard's McLaren. That should have been a great result for the Italian, bearing in mind that he was far better placed than team mate Felipe Massa, who eventually finished fifth.

"I'm still a bit disappointed! I saw the smoke already 100 metres before Tabac corner. In fact we slowed down quite a lot. I was behind Webber, I think. The speed when I had the accident was 55km/h! I think David was behind Sato. He was so slow, and then he came into the middle of the circuit. At that moment I was there, and I touched him. I saw a problem on Sato's car at the beginning of the race, so there was a possibility for him to stop earlier. There were still some other drivers arriving, and then finally I went out by myself."

Next stop is Montreal, where Giancarlo has put in a series of memorable drives over the years. He was second in 1998 and 1999, and third in 1997 and 2000. The Sauber isn't as competitive as the Jordan and Benetton he had in those days, but it's a strange race where anything can happen. Will the car be good in Canada?

"I've no idea! I think last year Michelin won with Williams. But I think our car is going to be good in that circuit. We know that the tyres are very consistent over a race distance. We need to improve our qualifying obviously, but I'm confident.

"We have to work hard, but we know that we have very good potential. We still have a lot of parts coming for the next two races, and they are doing very good development in the wind tunnel. So I'm looking forward to it."