Fisichella's season was to follow a similar pattern in 2000. He again gained some surprise podium finishes early in the year, but Benetton's poor second half of the season meant that he failed to score any more points. After his first Benetton year, when he finished one point behind him, Fisichella had comprehensively outperformed his Austrian teammate Alexander Wurz, who would then leave the team to make way for British rookie Jenson Button in 2001. Renault had purchased the Benetton team after the start of the 2000 season, but their radical engine design meant Benetton had an uncompetitive 2001 car, and as a result, Fisichella was battling for much of the season with teams such as Minardi and Prost. However, the efforts of technical director Mike Gascoyne and his staff did result in improvements over the year, culminating in a 4–5 finish at the German Grand Prix and a third-place finish for Fisichella at the Belgian race. Although Fisichella had gained the team's best results that season and consistently outperformed Button, he was not retained by the team, so he rejoined Jordan for 2002.