Matt Bishop: Jean Alesi's only F1 win in a 13-year career of hard-luck stories

Tomorrow, June 11, is Jean Alesi’s birthday. It is not a significant one – he will be turning 61 – but it is nonetheless an important anniversary. Why so, you may be wondering? Because, dear reader, it was on June 11, 1995, in other words exactly 30 years ago, in Canada, that he won a Formula 1 grand prix for the first and only time.

In 1989 no F1 journalist would have been expecting ever to have to write the word ‘first’ in that context as late as 1995 – for, when Alesi had finished a fine fourth in a dinky Tyrrell 018 on his grand prix debut at Paul Ricard in 1989, we immediately knew that he was special, and we were already therefore expecting him to require far fewer than six years to start winning regularly in F1. Equally, by 2001, even after having reported 13 seasons of Alesi hard-luck stories, we were still surprised to have to write the word ‘only’ in that context, for 2001 was the year in which he drove his 201st and last F1 grand prix, having added no further victories in the six years that had elapsed since his day of days in Montreal.

The Canadian Grand Prix was the sixth race of the 1995 F1 season, and the previous five had been won by Benetton’s Michael Schumacher and Williams’ Damon Hill. As the teams flew into Montreal-Dorval International Airport (since renamed Montreal-Trudeau International Airport), Schumacher duly headed the F1 drivers’ world championship on 34 points, narrowly ahead of Hill on 29. The two Ferrari drivers were the best of the rest, Gerhard Berger on 17 and Alesi on 14. Berger had bagged an excellent four podiums out of the five races, Alesi a creditable but less impressive two.

If Gerhard was happy with his commendably reliable points-scoring form, Jean was by contrast feeling frustrated, for he had failed to finish the most recent two grands prix, having suffered a blown engine in Barcelona and having shunted with Ligier’s Martin Brundle in Monaco. More upsetting still, he had been heading for second place both times. Worse yet, the Montreal paddock was awash with rumours to the effect that Schumacher was in talks with Ferrari with a view to taking his, Alesi’s, place at the Scuderia for the following season.

Montreal qualifying went the way of the form book, Schumacher taking the pole, 0.378sec ahead of Hill in P2. Berger and Alesi were fourth and fifth, in that order. But rain fell during the warm-up on a dank race-day morning, and the Ferrari drivers ended up first and third, Alesi the faster of the two. Jean had always been quick in the wet, and he now began praying that the rain would set in for the rest of the day.

It did no such thing. Indeed, soon the sun came out, and the circuit began to dry. Nonetheless, buoyed by the confidence instilled in him by having shone that morning when the sun did not, Alesi started the race well, maintaining fifth place as per his grid position, and from the get-go he began to attack with controlled aggression the now almost dry but still pretty slippery Montreal asphalt.

On lap two he passed Berger for fourth place into the hairpin, and that fourth place became third when, also at the hairpin, David Coulthard spun his Williams 100 metres ahead of him. Alesi was now just over three seconds behind second-placed Hill, but Jean was on a charge, and on lap three he drove the race’s then fastest lap. By lap seven he was just a second behind Hill, and soon he was beginning to look for a way by.

The battle for second place was hotting up, but the race for the win was beginning to look as though it was going to be yet another Schumi benefit, for he was streaking away into a big lead and by lap 16 he was more than eight seconds ahead of Hill, who did not seem able to shake off Alesi. Sure enough, a lap later, Damon was slowed by Tyrrell’s Ukyo Katayama, who had served a stop-go penalty for a jumped start and was therefore already lapping fodder for the leaders, and that was all Jean needed. On the approach to the hairpin he hurled his Ferrari inside Hill’s Williams, sawing at the wheel as the red car fishtailed past the blue-and-white one under heavy braking, and he was through.

Now he was second, but Schumacher was long gone. Could he make inroads into Michael’s lead? No, he could not; by lap 20 Schumi was almost 12 seconds ahead of Alesi in second place; and so it was that Murray Walker now asked Jonathan Palmer on BBC TV, “Is it all over bar the shouting?”

We all thought it was – including Palmer, who readily agreed with Walker — for Schumacher now looked to be in complete control of proceedings, and after the final pitstops his lead over second-placed Alesi had grown to 26 seconds. Jean now backed off, since he was well ahead of everyone else. Indeed, after the race he would say, “Once I got into second place, my race was very easy. In the early laps I was thinking maybe I could fight Schumacher, but I quickly realised that that was going to be impossible, and soon he was out of reach.”

There — out of reach — Schumacher would have remained, had his Benetton’s gearbox not developed an electrical malfunction that left it stuck in third gear. Yes, at long last, after so many disappointments, luck would finally be on Alesi’s side, and, by the time Michael had limped his car around to the pits, Jean had swooped into the lead.

There were 11 laps to go now. Alesi had driven 90 grands prix, and he had stood on a grand prix podium 15 times, albeit never on the central plinth. Could he hold on to his lead and thereby break his F1 duck? Yes, he could, and as he crossed the line he punched the air to the manner born.

Fans in their thousands invaded the track, overjoyed to be witnessing an immensely likeable driver win their home race in a Ferrari carrying the number-27 made so famous by their still-missed local hero, Gilles Villeneuve. Alesi then ran out of fuel on his slowing-down lap, he parked up on the side of the track, he clambered out of his Ferrari, he began waving jubilantly to the crowd, then he hailed Schumacher’s passing Benetton, which Michael had raced to fifth place after a pitstop to have his transmission gremlins fixed. Schumi stopped, Alesi hopped aboard, and TV viewers worldwide were delighted to see him being driven back to parc fermé as the Benetton’s pillion passenger.

Devotees of F1 stats may enjoy my next two paragraphs. Before the race, Ferrari and McLaren had been tied on 104 world championship-status F1 grand prix victories each. Alesi’s win lifted Ferrari into a lead in that particular contest that it has never lost and may now never lose, for the all-time F1 grand prix win table now reads: Ferrari in first place (on 248 wins); McLaren second (196); Mercedes third (129); Red Bull fourth (124); and Williams fifth (114).

So far, four other drivers have amassed 15 F1 grand prix podium finishes before recording their first F1 grand prix wins – and, of the quintet, only Alesi never won another. Patrick Depailler added only one more victory, Eddie Irvine only three more, Mika Häkkinen a hefty 19 more (and two F1 drivers’ world championships, too), and Lando Norris five more (and counting).