Giancarlo Fisichella on the podium at Spa-Francorchamps last Sunday along with Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen after the pair locked out the top two finishing positions. now the pair are set to be team mates at the Scuderia until the end of the season.

Ferrari confirmed this afternoon that veteran Italian F1 driver Giancarlo Fisichella has switched from the Force India team to fill Felipe Massa's seat in the #3 F60 in time for the Italian Grand Prix in nine days time and the remaining four other races this season. Fisichella, who briefly tested a Ferrari earlier in his career, was the star of last weekend's Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, harrying Kimi Raikkonen's F60 all the way to the chequered flag after he had started from pole position in the normally-tardy Force India.

It all means that the Scuderia's test driver Luca Badoer, who has deputised in the last two grands prix in Valencia and Belgium, after a sensational planned F1 comeback by Michael Schumacher was aborted due to a long-standing injury, returns to his previous duties.

"Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro announces that it has appointed Giancarlo Fisichella to drive car number 3 from now to the end of the 2009 season," read a brief statement issued in Maranello.

“We have chosen Fisichella because we can expect him to make a valuable contribution in this final part of the season,” commented Stefano Domenicali. “Giancarlo has shown, throughout his long career, that he is fast and competitive and we are therefore proud to be able to run an Italian driver in our home race. We wish to thank Luca Badoer for the team spirit he demonstrated in these circumstances: it is a shame he was unable to show his true worth in these last two races, tackled under conditions which anyone would have found difficult.”

36-year-old Giancarlo Fisichella has started 224 grands prix since he made his F1 debut in Australia in 1996 behind the wheel of a Minardi M195B. In the last 12 seasons the Italian has driven for Benetton, Renault, Sauber, Jordan (where he won his first race in 2003) and for the last two years for Force India, claiming three career wins in total as well as four pole positions and amassing 275 points.

He also took time out of his single-seater career in 1995 and 1996 to drive Alfa Romeo's legendary 155 V6 TI racer in the DTM/ITC series (in the latter year he was also a test driver for Ferrari) while a one-off appearance for the factory N.Technology Alfa Romeo team in the 2003 European Touring Car Championship's Monza round resulted in irreparable damage to the car after a crash during practice that scuppered his race day appearance.

Since the beginning of last year Fisichella has struggled in the uncompetitive tail ender team Force India; however over the last weekend the Silverstone-based team, which started life as the Jordan team before becoming Midland and Spyker, has experienced a dramatic upturn in fortunes and the Italian claimed pole position at Spa-Francorchamps before chasing the Belgian Grand Prix winner Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen all the way to the chequered flag to earn the team its first points of the year.