S7 E5: Jean Alesi's explosive 1990 season
Bring Back V10s - Classic F1 stories
The Race Media Ltd
4.9 • 764 Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2023
⏱️ 87 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jean Alesi announced himself as an F1 star in the making at the first race of 1990 in Phoenix, where he led the first half of the race, then cheekily stole the lead back from Ayrton Senna after the McLaren driver passed him mid-race. It set the scene for an eventful year for Alesi on and off track, as he performed underdog heroics with Tyrrell, and ended up signing contracts with both Williams and Ferrari for 1991. Sam Smith and Andrew van de Burgt join host Glenn Freeman to assess how good Alesi's season really was, why he never regularly hit those heights over the rest of his career, plus who or what was at fault for the mess he found himself in behind the scenes.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic |
| 0:02.0 | Jean-Aleasy looked destined for F1 superstardom at the start of the 1990s as he kicked off the decade by leading its first race, then memorably mugged Ayrton Senna after the |
| 0:21.9 | McLaren driver had caught and passed him for the lead on the streets of Phoenix. |
| 0:26.3 | There were more heroics on track during that year and another street circuit podium in |
| 0:30.4 | Monaco, but ultimately Alassi's first season F1 became more memorable for what was going |
| 0:35.8 | on behind the scenes scenes and his famous contract |
| 0:38.5 | saga that eventually resulted in him landing a dream move to Ferrari, despite having |
| 0:44.0 | previously signed a contract with Williams. |
| 0:51.1 | In this episode of Bring Back V10s, we'll unpick everything that was going on during a summer where a Lacey signed contracts with three teams for 1991 and also revisit what made him and the influential Tirol 019 such a potent package on their day. |
| 1:07.2 | And joining me, Glenn Freeman, to do just that, are Sam Smith and Andrew Vanderberg. |
| 1:12.7 | Andy, welcome along, straight into it. When you think of Jean Aletis's 1990, what's the first |
| 1:18.1 | thing that comes to mind? Yeah, hi, Glenn. Thanks for having me back on. It's an honor to be here |
| 1:23.2 | talking about Alaci in particular this season. So, so many memories. I mean, obviously, |
| 1:28.4 | everyone will recall that pass in Phoenix and, you know, what a, what an introduction to the year |
| 1:34.7 | that that was. But I think the bit that always comes back to mind is the Italian Grand Prix |
| 1:41.5 | that year, where he beats Mantle off the line, then does Brost into the second |
| 1:47.1 | chicane. Then Warwick has his massive shunt and the start all happens again. And he does exactly |
| 1:53.1 | the same thing. And we watched the commentary and like Murray Walker can't believe that he's there, |
| 1:58.1 | just blasting past Prost to retake the position in almost completely |
| 2:02.6 | identical fashion to the way he did it first of all. So yeah, I just saw an amazing memory of that |
| 2:07.9 | at a time when, you know, I'd been a PK fan since I started watching F1, but after those two years |
| 2:13.6 | at Lotus, I was so having to come to the realization that maybe he was past it and I was |
... |
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