Jean
Alesi

Jean Alesi was born in Avignon on 11 June 1964. He took up karting at 16, originally intending to go rallying. In 1983 he entered the French Renault 5 Turbo championship, where he raced for two seasons. He won the French Formula 3 title in 1987 and moved up to International Formula 3000 in 1988. In 1989 he won that championship with Jordan, finishing level on points with Érik Comas but taking the title with three wins to two.

That same year he made his Formula One debut. At the 1989 French Grand Prix he took over Michele Alboreto's Tyrrell and finished fourth. 1990 was his first full season. In the opening round at Phoenix he led for 25 laps ahead of Ayrton Senna before finishing second, and he came second again at Monaco. He ended the year ninth in the championship.

Alesi drove for Ferrari from 1991 to 1995, first alongside Alain Prost and later with Gerhard Berger as his team-mate. He finished seventh in the championship in 1991 and 1992, sixth in 1993, and fifth in both 1994 and 1995. He took his first pole position at Monza in 1994. On 11 June 1995, his 31st birthday, he won the Canadian Grand Prix after Michael Schumacher hit mechanical trouble with ten laps to go. It remained his only Grand Prix victory. He left Ferrari at the end of that season, swapping places with Schumacher, and drove for Benetton in 1996 and 1997, finishing fourth in the championship both years. He took pole position at Monza in 1997.

He then spent 1998 and 1999 with Sauber, and his third place at the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix was the last podium of his career. In 2000 he joined Prost, and he began 2001 with the team too. From the Hungarian Grand Prix that year he drove for Jordan, the team with which he had won Formula 3000 in 1989. His final race was the 2001 Japanese Grand Prix. In total he made 201 starts, with one win, 32 podiums and two pole positions.

After Formula One, Alesi raced for Mercedes in the DTM from 2002 to 2006 and won several races, finishing fifth overall in 2002. He later took part in the Speedcar Series, winning two races in each of 2008 and 2009. In 2010 he shared an AF Corse Ferrari with Giancarlo Fisichella and Toni Vilander at the Le Mans 24 Hours and finished fourth in the GT2 class. In 2012 he contested the Indianapolis 500, qualifying 33rd and parking his car after fewer than a dozen laps. He then retired from racing. In 2013 he became an ambassador for Pirelli.

Source: Wikipedia, “Jean Alesi”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.