Chennai, Sep 3 - After winning a sensational podium finish for Force India at the Belgian Grand Prix last week, Italian Giancarlo Fisichella will race for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team for the rest of the season.

A replacement for 36-year-old Fisichella will be announced over the next couple of days, according to a release from Force India team here Thursday.

Fisichella's move, as speculated in the past week, was to be expected since Ferrari, without an injured Brazilian Felipe Massa, were struggling with their replacement Luca Badoer, their long-time test driver. Massa has been out of the curcuit after an accident at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

With the next race on home turf at Monza, Ferrari were only too anxious to get a driver who can be competitive and provide adequate support to Finn Kimi Raikkonen who, incidentally, won in Belgium last weekend, holding off Fisichella with less than a second to spare.

Vijay Mallya, chairman and team principal, said: 'Giancarlo and his management team approached me yesterday with the proposal from Ferrari. For any Italian driver, a Ferrari race seat is a long-held dream and for Giancarlo it was no exception.'

'No one should stand in the way of this. Furthermore, the agreement will secure Giancarlo's long-term future with Ferrari and it would be incorrect to jeopardise this, particularly when Giancarlo has made such a vital contribution to Force India,' Mallya said.

'We would like to stress that we have not agreed any financial settlement with Ferrari. This agreement has been made in good faith and for the good of Giancarlo and the sport in general,' he clarified.