Lazy crazy Alesi days (Jean Alesi)

Member Name: davidbuttery

Product:	Jean Alesi
Date:	17/07/02 (51 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The archetypal emotional Latin type...

Disadvantages: Er... ditto

Ah, this is much more like it. What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a racing driver. A proper one. By which I mean a man who is brilliant, appalling, idiotic, unpredictable, emotional, determined and inspired by turns. In fact, quite often all of these at once. French-Sicilian Alesi was one of the last (perhaps *the*last) of the true *racers* in Formula One (Juan-Pablo Montoya notwithstanding), and as such we should feel privileged to have seen him.

Jean burst upon the F1 scene way back in 1989, driving for Tyrrell (RIP), and finishing in a superb fourth place - from sixteenth on the grid. What really woke people up to his talent, though, was that extraordinary battle he had with Ayrton Senna's McLaren in Phoenix the next year. For thirty laps he held Senna off, and even when the McLaren driver did force his way past, Jean, in a breathtaking manoeuvre, retook Senna at the next corner. You just didn't do that to the Brazilian (mainly because Ayrton tended to drive into people, but that's another story), and suddenly Alesi was the new superstar of Grand Prix racing.

Unfortunately, it all went pretty pear-shaped thereafter. It's fairly well known that Jean had the chance to sign for Williams (and, indeed, Benetton) for 1991, and we all know what Nigel Mansell achieved with the British marque just a season later, but instead Alesi opted for Ferrari. This was a clear case of heart ruling head, but Jean would not be Jean otherwise. As things turned out, of course, Alesi's signing coincided with the start of Ferrari's worst slump in years. 1991 started off reasonably, with regular points finishes, but descended into utter farce by season's end when Alain Prost, far and away Ferrari's most bankable asset, was sacked before the year was out- to be replaced by that well-known genius of the circuit, Gianni Morbidelli - for (quite correctly) saying the car was dreadful. (In fact, what Prost said was that Maranello's
feeble attempt at a Grand Prix racing car made him feel like a lorry driver.)

If 1991 was bad, 1992, turned the once-proud Scuderia into the laughing-stock of the pit-lane (which took some considerable doing when Andrea Moda were around). Jean struggled to 18 points. Two third places - in Canada and Spain - were the team's only podiums of the entire season. In the circumstances, however, this effort was nothing short of heroic. Ivan Capelli managed to amass a staggering three (that's *three*) points, and was replaced for the last two races by another journeyman, Nicola Larini - who managed to be lapped in both of them. 1993 was almost as dire, despite the experienced and able Gerhard Berger's introduction to the team. Only Jean's emotional (what else?) second-place at Monza salvaged some pride. 1994 was a little better - at least there was a Ferrari win in Germany... but that was for Berger. A more calculating man than Jean would surely have followed Prost's example and got out by this stage, yet for Alesi the lure of the red cars was just too strong, and - at last - his perseverance was about to be rewarded.

In 1995, Jean Alesi won a Grand Prix, and the achievement was greeted with cheers and applause up and down the pitlane. This was something that we had all waited to see for so long. No matter that his triumph in Canada owed more to canny exploitation of good fortune than the out-and-out on-the-limit driving we all knew and loved, or that the McLarens and Williamses had retired long since - no, this was not the moment for rational reflection: this was a moment of pure, unadulterated joy. Jean admitted afterwards that he had found it hard to see where he was going at the end of the race because of the tears in his visor, and one could well believe that. There were four second places as well that season, and it looked like Alesi was finally on his way to the big time.

In '96 and '97 he drove alongside Berger
and then Wurz at Benetton. Michael Schumacher had just won back-to-back titles for the team, so it looked a great move. Inevitably, though, Jean's talent for being in the right place at the wrong time shone through, and though the car was reasonably competitive it was a long way short of expectations - a lot of the team's success in the previous seasons was down to the brilliance of Schumacher rather than any breakthrough in the performance of the chassis or engine. Yet another young rising star, Giancarlo Fisichella, took Alesi's place for 1998 and Jean was forced to clamber aboard the somewhat rickety Sauber life-raft.

At this point it looked as though Jean's F1 story was close to its end. We'll skim over these few years, if you don't mind, as they're pretty depressing. Nine points in 1998 was bad enough, but the following two years' campaigns, bringing just two points in 1999 and none at all in a desperate 2000 campaign with the equally wretched Prost-Peugeot, were painful to behold. It might surprise some people that he chose to stay on for 2001, but it shouldn't. Alesi was, after all, a racing driver, with the emphasis on *racing*.

2001 began better. Peugeot finally departed, to the sorrow of absolutely no-one in the paddock, leaving a quite abysmal record in F1 behind them. The Prost-Acer was a much better machine than 2000's utter heap, if still not exactly competitive, and you could see the confidence gradually returning to Jean's driving. Back with it came the exciting, eleven-tenths style that always made him such a crowd favourite, and brought with it the respect and love of the fans. Think about it - how many other current F1 drivers could honestly be referred to as "loved"? Remember him throwing his helmet and gloves into the crowd when he finished in the points for the first time that season? Did you look at his face? You couldn't imagine that expression on a Coulthard or a S
chumacher, could you? Montoya is the most exciting of today's crop of top drivers, but even he does not invest his driving with the sheer passion that Alesi did.

The season was complicated by the dismissal of Heinz-Harald Frentzen from the Jordan team. After the usual shenanigans, the upshot was a swap, with Frentzen going to Prost and Alesi to Jordan. Most people were pleased, as it seemed to have been one of Jean's few good career moves... but in the end the Honda influence was too strong, and Alesi's 2002 seat was given to Japanese plodder Takuma Sato, who has so far rivalled his older compatriot Taki Inoue in terms of ridiculous prangs (no safety cars yet, though...). This shock seemed to have woken Jean up to the fact that F1 was no longer his whole life - had he been ruthless about his pursuit of another driver, he might have gained a seat with Arrows (for all the use that would have been), but instead he chose to bow out from the formula, and from the fans to whom he had given so much for so little reward.

The thing I always liked most about Alesi is that, first and foremost, he was a pure racer. He despised, as I did (and do), launch control, automatic gearboxes and the other "driver aids" that have stealthily turned Grand Prix racing into a giant Scalextric set. He was even been known to turn such "aids" off deliberately to improve his "feel" for the car, an art almost lost in today's F1. Jean was the last driver to have seen F1 action at Monaco with a fully manual gearbox (the thing I'd most like to see brought back, as - for example - missed gears would give the chance of overtaking), steering with one hand and changing with the other. That means something like 3000 gear changes in the course of the race, something most current drivers couldn't even begin to imagine. He had superb car control, as evidenced by his sublime skills in the wet - an advantage negated by traction control, wh
ich allows a driver to plant his foot to the floor out of a bend, and to hell with finesse and balancing the car on the throttle.

Jean Alesi was (and still is, as his DTM drives this season have proved) at heart, a showman, who desperately wanted to give the crowd - his people, as he saw it - good entertainment and value for money. A rare and precious thing in the modern Grand Prix world, and his departure has left a gap still not adequately filled by others. I believe he could have been champion had he signed for Williams in '91, but he chose to follow his heart. Thank you, Jean. It was fun.

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