Bob Bell, technical director at Renault, has said it is now or never for Fisichella to win the Driver’s Championship. Fisichella becomes Renault’s lead driver for the 2007 season after Alonso has departed for McLaren.
“If he doesn’t find it this year, then I doubt if he ever will,” Bell explained. “This I think really is a make-or-break year for Fisi. All we can do as a team is have confidence in his ability to rise to the challenge. We will give him the best equipment we humanly can and give him all the support we humanly can and see where that takes us. I wouldn’t write the guy off at all. We will certainly start the season working completely on the assumption that Fisi is as capable of winning the world championship as Fernando or anybody else working at that level.”
However Fisichella will need to make stark improvements on last season if he is to win the title – He finished fourth overall, 62 points behind his teammate and World Champion, Alonso. He also won just the one last race compared with Alonso’s seven race wins.
Bell believes that Fisichella’s strength lies in recovering from setbacks and that this will help him achieve his aims in the 2007 season. “Fisi is great at coming back,” Bell said. “When he has had a bad race, he is good at putting it behind him.”
