Dear Pedro,

“You know me – I want so much to do this. I still have incredible determination; I want to drive as much as when I started…”

This was Jean Alesi in the summer of 2001, when he was driving for the Prost team, and struggling with an uncompetitive car. Yes, he might have wished to be at the other end of the grid, where one of his ability properly belonged, but – like Gilles Villeneuve – he still loved driving for its own sake, and I’m sure he always will.

Alesi’s arrival in F1, at the 1989 French Grand Prix, was startling, for he finished fourth after running as high as second. The F1 world took due note, for rookies almost never perform at that level; as well as that, Alesi was driving not for one of the big teams, but for Tyrrell, whose great days were long in the past. The following spring Jean led much of the US Grand Prix in Phoenix, fought a brief but memorable battle with Ayrton Senna, and finished second. At Monte Carlo, it was again Senna-Alesi.

Through that year, everyone was trying to sign him for 1991, and had Jean been a normal, pragmatic sort of F1 driver he would have weighed up his options and signed for Williams-Renault. Had he done so, who knows how many Grands Prix he might have won? If Frank had been able to sign him for ’91, after all, there would have been no need to sweet-talk Nigel Mansell out of his plan to retire. Williams was on the cusp of a period of domination, and Jean could have been in the pound seats.

As it was, heart ruled head – as it was always to do with Jean – and he committed himself to Ferrari, where it may fairly be said he wasted five years in usually uncompetitive cars. Jean himself doesn’t see it that way, of course, for he adored the team, and still says he has no regrets. You mention the lost Williams opportunity, and you get a rueful shrug: yes, for sure it would have been better for his career, but… there’s no point in thinking about it.

Just before Christmas one year, I was in Williams’s office, when someone came in with a case of champagne. “It’s from Jean!” Frank exclaimed, delightedly. “Isn’t that something? The first present I’ve ever been given by a racing driver – and he doesn’t even drive for me. Lovely bloke – and a remarkable driver. He’ll be here eventually…”

It never happened, though. After Ferrari, Alesi went to Benetton for two years, after which the management decided it should in future go for ‘yoof’, in the form of Giancarlo Fisichella, Jenson Button and Alex Wurz.

To my mind, Alesi was always among the very fastest drivers, but often overlooked was that, given a half-reliable car, he was also among the best finishers in the business. In two years with Benetton he made the podium 13 times.

There followed a couple of seasons with Sauber, a team he enjoyed, but not one capable of doing him justice. Twice though – at the A1-Ring in 1998, and Magny-Cours in ’99 – Jean started from the front row, on each occasion a treacherous track surface allowing his other-worldly car control to compensate for middling equipment.

Little needs to be said about his time with Prost. Alesi went there in a positive frame of mind, for Alain was not only a man he revered, but also his close friend. The two of them talked of forging a really strong French team, even envisaging a role for Jean after his retirement as a driver. As it was, though, everything went wrong, not least because Prost’s sponsors deserted him. Perhaps it’s true that one should never work with friends.

I must confess I found it extraordinary that the top teams continued to pass Jean by. Yes, he could be temperamental, and he tended to say what he thought – but, in the end, even in the 21st century do you hire a driver for his PR blandness or his speed?

Gerhard Berger, Alesi’s long-time team-mate at Ferrari and Benetton, remained a fan to the end of Jean’s F1 career. “For me, Jean was very underestimated. I thought he was really a very good racing driver. He didn’t make many mistakes in a race, he had unbelievable car control, he had speed, he had experience, he was quick in the rain – and he was a very good finisher.

“Jean’s problem was always that he had an image of being uncontrollable, but I didn’t think that was fair – particularly in his later years. I always thought the way he behaved depended entirely on how he was treated.”

So there you are, Pedro. Not only do I agree with you about Jean Alesi, but – more to the point – so do such as Frank Williams and Gerhard Berger. A lovely bloke, and a hugely talented driver.

Dear Paul,

Oh, I’d have to say Gilles Villeneuve. Don’t think I ever came across a driver – save perhaps Jean Alesi – who so much loved simply driving a Grand Prix car. “It’s a s***box,” Gilles cheerfully said of the 1980 Ferrari T5, “but I’m still happy to throw it round Fiorano all day, and the next, even though I know it’s reached the end of its development and isn’t going to get any better…”

Villeneuve’s no-holds-barred battle with René Arnoux’s Renault in the late laps at Dijon in 1979 has gone into motor racing legend. It was about as tough as Grand Prix racing gets, but – unlike the sort of stunts pulled routinely by M Schumacher – it was also completely fair, and at the end of the race there were no recriminations on either side: indeed, when they stepped from their cars, Gilles and René embraced. “That,” Gilles said, “was really fun!” And to this day René says it was the most enjoyable race of his career.