Despite his limited testing programme, Giancarlo qualified in 16th and put in a very respectable debut performance, although he ultimately did not finish the race. “It was fantastic. The whole weekend was a bit of a shock for me, but one of the biggest things I remember was when I was at the drivers' briefing,” Giancarlo recalls. “I was surrounded by
Michael Schumacher, Gerhard Berger, and Jean Alesi, all my heroes. I was thinking I am one of them, I am here with them. It was really nice, a great period for me.
“I qualified 16th, which was good, and I was quicker than my team-mate, Pedro Lamy. Before this race I had done just two tests in Fiorano, I had no experience at all. Then in the race I was in a good position, but I had a problem with the hydraulic pressure. I thought it was a good debut though, better than I expected considering my lack of preparation!”
Giancarlo ran only eight races that season before money pressures forced the team to take drivers who could bring significant amounts of funding.
“They were a few seconds slower than me, but everyone knew why I wasn't there any more. It was nice to be an
F1 driver, but I was quite confident that I would be back in F1 in the future. In fact a few months later I signed a contract with Benetton, with Flavio Briatore. He told me that they liked me, but for next year they already had Berger and Alesi, so they didn't have space for me. He did however want to see me somewhere in F1 to get experience, so they found a compromise with Eddie Jordan. This is how I came to drive for Jordan in 1997.”
Alongside fellow new boy
Ralf Schumacher, Giancarlo soon showed his pace, but a potential first podium was lost in Argentina: “I was second and Ralf was third, and in the hairpin he pushed me out, and lost the possibility to get on the podium. So it was very disappointing.”
Third in Canada, the seventh race of the year, made up for it, but then Giancarlo lost the chance of a sensational maiden win in Hockenheim.
