Symonds backs Fisichella to bounce back

Fisichella failed to match his Spanish teammate during their two seasons together at Renault, winning just two races while Alonso grabbed back-to-back world championship titles.

But despite that record, Symonds is convinced that Alonso's departure will result in a very different Fisichella - and maybe a return to the form that saw him labelled as one of the very best F1 talents several years ago.

"I think Fisi's had quite a tough time for a number of years," said Symonds, during a dinner with Autosport magazine, the full transcript of which can be read in this week's autosport.com journal.

"If you look back at his history, he's always been faster than his teammate - going back to F3, he was very much the golden boy. And Fernando really was, is, something really special. It was very hard for Fisi to come to terms with that.

"But having spoken to him over the past couple of months about next year and the way things will shape up, I think he's got enough character to get back and step up to the job.

"When he last drove for us in 2001, he really did a good job with a pretty dreadful car, really had a very high work rate, quite a lot of intelligence to it and that sort of slipped away a little bit over the past couple of years - he has his good days and his bad days, and I think he can get over that."

Symonds thinks that Fisichella will face a tough challenge from new signing Heikki Kovalainen, who is stepping up from his testing duties with the team.

"I think he's (Kovalainen) going to be quick and make mistakes, and that's a pretty good thing for a rookie driver," said Symonds. "Being slow and not making mistakes isn't terribly exciting, being slow and making mistakes is a disaster.

"And being quick and making the odd mistake along the way is pretty acceptable."