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Jean Alesi's breakout year

Sweeping to F3000 success, winning over an F1 team and making a spectacular grand prix debut. Jean Alesi looks back on a breakout 1989 season with CHARLES BRADLEY

Charles Bradley Jan 2, 2015, 10:52 PM

Breakout years, the kind that define a top-level driver's career and can shake up an entire generation, come along only rarely. Last year Daniel Ricciardo had that kind of season. But a quarter of a century ago, with legendary talent spotters Eddie Jordan and Ken Tyrrell behind him, Jean Alesi became the hottest prospect on the grand prix grid.

But does it really feel like a quarter of a century ago to Alesi? "I can believe it was 25 years ago, because today my kid is racing and I am the one who is doing all the watching!" he laughs today. "But when you have a chance, you just have to take it. In 1989 I had the chance, in F3000 and then in F1, and I just said to myself, 'Go for it'."

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Author Charles Bradley

Charles Bradley is Motorsport.com’s Global Editor in Chief. After spending five years in the aerospace industry in his native North Wales, while working weekends as a freelance writer at racetracks around the UK, Charles joined the staff of Motoring News in the heart of London. He transferred to the nascent Autosport.com team in 2000 before transitioning to the magazine, becoming its Editor between 2011 and 2014. Charles then upped sticks to work in America, as Motorsport.com’s Editor in Chief, where he created the multi-national and multi-lingual editorial team that quickly became the world’s most-read motorsport website. He was instrumental in delivering three of the biggest Global F1 Fan Surveys in sports history and is also a multiple award-winning scriptwriter. Charles is an overseas member of the Guild of Motoring Writers. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife Helen – and a cat that’s named after Serbia’s top football club.