Giancarlo wins the first 'swap' battle with Trulli.

The Jordan-Honda ace was honoured at a glittering ceremony at which Franco Lucchesi, president of the Automobile Club of Italy, and Paolo Cantarella, chief executive of Fiat, were present.

Fisichella, the 1994 Italian F3 champion, is without a GP win in his nine podium finishes, but he has long been rated as one of the most talented drivers in F1 and would almost certainly have claimed a victory by now had he been in the right car at the right time.

In 2001 the Roman was forced to battle with Minardis for much of the early part of the year in the pretty dire Renault powered Benetton but he was rewarded for his immense effort with an incredible podium finish at Spa-Francorchamps in one of the drives of the year.

Renault boss Flavio Briatore then did a swap deal with Eddie Jordan, exchanging Fisichella for Trulli and the Automobile Club of Italy clearly thinks Jordan got the best deal. It rated the Roman's performances in the underpowered and poor handling B201 as better than those of Trulli in the Jordan-Honda EJ11.

Giancarlo has been heavily involved this past week in testing the new Jordan EJ12 at Valencia and now heads to Barcelona as his team prepares for the season's first GP in Melbourne on 3 March.