It was only when the grandstands began to stir – Ferrari flags emerging in their thousands – that he understood.
“The next time around my guy was on the pitwall, he showed my pitboard with P1 on it.” And then the tears came.
The wonder of that moment is inseparable from everything that preceded it.
By the time Alesi won in Montreal, he had spent six seasons watching victories slip away.
His early years at Tyrrell had announced him as someone genuinely extraordinary – fourth on his Formula 1 debut at Paul Ricard in 1989, then a stunning second at Phoenix in 1990 where he led almost half the race in a Cosworth-powered car against Honda V10s before Ayrton Senna finally caught him; third at Monaco that same year, splitting the two McLarens.
The talent was obvious. What followed was a career that somehow never delivered what it promised, and yet never quite disappointed either.
Alesi with Ken Tyrrel in 1990
Grand Prix Photo
The crux was the decision at the end of 1990: Williams or Ferrari.
Frank Williams had offered him a three-year contract. Then, at Imola, Ferrari came calling through sporting director Cesare Fiorio.
Alesi turned them down as he was already committed, but Fiorio’s parting words lodged somewhere: “It’s never a good idea for a driver to say no to Ferrari.”
When Williams then stalled on announcing the deal, when it emerged that Frank was pursuing Senna, when Nelson Piquet suggested he started adding clauses (“Plus a Ferrari F40” was among them), the Williams paper went in the bin.
His answer, when asked if he regretted the decision, is ambigous.
“Well, can you imagine how it felt for me, in 1991, in my Ferrari, to be lapped sometimes after just 15 laps by the Williams that I’d had a chance to drive?” He shrugs. “Did I make a mistake in saying no to Williams? Maybe. But I’d made my decision because of human issues, not car issues.”
Alesi scored 16 second places in F1
Grand Prix Photo
Alesi collected 16 second places across his career, racing in an era that included Senna, Prost, Piquet, Mansell and Schumacher. He never contended for a championship.
And yet the complexity of his feelings about that Montreal win speaks to something real.
“Afterwards,” he admits, “although I’d finally won a grand prix, and that was great, I felt a bit strange. The reason was that I’d led so many grands prix in the past, and I’d only won this one because Michael had a problem.
“So after the race my feeling was relief rather than joy.”