Giancarlo꧟ Fisichella headed to Imola buoyed by the knowledge that he had the new, lighter, B-spec Renault V10 to power his hopes of a return to the points, but the weekend turned out to be anything but a happy homeꦓcoming for the Italian.

Point-less from the previous two events, in Malaysia and Bahrain, Fisi was intent on restarting his season, and possibly closing the gap on team-mate Fernando Alonso, with a good result in the San Marino Grand Prix. However, his weekend got off to a poor start when a mechanical glitch caused him to lose time on his first qualifying lap, dropping the Renault well down the order, and the Itaꦐlian never reall𒈔y recovered.

Having made up earl🐈y ground in the race, he duly became the first retirement after hitting the barriers at Ta🐽mburello. Once again, however, the team is investigating to see whether a technical issue may have been to blame.

"I really don't know what happened this afternoon," Fisichella sighed, "I made a good s💞tart and was much quicker than Heidfeld, so I was just sitting behind him and waiting for the pit-stop. Then, going through turn two, I lost the 💞rear end of the car and spun into the wall."

With Alonso winning his third race on the trot, the gap between Fi🍸sichella and the Spaniard is now 26 points, although Fisi remains in a tie for third overall.

"It is extremely disappointing [to end the weekend like this], bec💟ause we had the pace again today to score somꦆe points," he summed up.