Sidepodcast

• Length: 3:59 
• Size: 3.7 MB 
• File: people12.mp3 
• Transcript: people12.pdf 
• Torrent: people12.torrent 

Welcome to the fifth entry in a series of short shows brought to you by Sidepodcast, called F1 People. So far this series we’ve looked at Colin Chapman and Murray Walker, now it’s time to look at Jean Alesi.

Giovanni Alesi was born on June 11th, 1964 to Italian parents in France. His early racing career was in rallying, which he preferred to the single seater style series, but he worked his way to take part in the Renault 5 championship. He took part in French Formula 3, winning a title, and International F3000, again taking the title. His Formula 1 debut was in 1989 at the French Grand Prix with the Tyrrel-Cosworth team. He finished fourth, after running second for a portion of the race, and he decided to drive in both the Formula 1 and F3000 series in the same year. He was successful and claimed another F3000 title.

The next year, 1990, he took up F1 full time, still with Tyrrell. At the US GP that year, he made his name, by leading the race in an underperforming car, and battling with Senna along the way. Eventually, he had to concede the lead to Senna but his popularity soared. Several teams wanted his services and by mid-season, Tyrrell, Williams and Ferrari all claimed that they had signed Alesi for their own for the following season. Williams had also signed Nigel Mansell, and Alesi decided his best bet was to go with Ferrari. They were the dominant force at the time, and teamed with Alain Prost, Alesi assumed he would be learning from the best in the best team. It was also a popular decision with Italian’s, given Alesi’s heritage.

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If Prodrive ever do make it to the grid, there will be another very fierce rivalry to cope with. Not only will we have McLaren vs Ferrari, and Alonso vs. The World, we will have to contend with Prodrive vs. Williams.

David Richards has had a bit of a rant about Williams, upset that they played such an integral role in blocking his 2008 F1 entry. He’s called them outdated, and financially unstable, and my favourite quote of all:

“It’s run by people who want to go motor racing, not by people who want to run a business.”

Because that is so outrageous, you know, people in motor sport actually wanting to race!

Seriously though, we all know that it wasn’t completely Williams fault – they threatened legal action if the team entered, but they couldn’t have actually done anything to stop the team participating. The real issues lie, as all of them seem to do, with the Concorde Agreement. Or perhaps, with the lack of a Concorde Agreement.

Without this, it’s almost impossible to plan ahead, to secure sponsors, and therefore, get your entry together.

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Show notes for Episode 43.

A short and sweet episode catching up with the latest news throughout the week, including:

• Renault’s engine deal
• Prodrive’s step backwards
• Honda’s testing upset

Theme music: Rich Reich, Keeping Up With The Race. Download the show transcript for full text.