Some Formula 1 drivers win dozens of races. Jean Alesi won just one — and three decades on, the emotion of it has not faded an inch. Reflecting on his career in a Legends edition of F1's official Beyond the Grid podcast, the Frenchman returned to the day that defined him: the 1995 Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, claimed in a Ferrari on his 31st birthday, carrying the number 27 once made famous by his idol Gilles Villeneuve.
What lingers most is how he discovered he was about to win. With Michael Schumacher's leading Benetton hit by an electrical problem, Alesi was suddenly out front — but nobody had told him.
"I passed the finish line and my pit board was not there," he recalled. "And then when I arrived at the hairpin, I see everybody standing up with the flag, the Ferrari flag. I understood. I had a big shock."
For a driver who stood on the podium 32 times yet won only once, the rarity made the moment immense. "I had many, many possibilities to win the Grand Prix but always something was happening, and I was not able to make it happen, to have more wins," he said. "So for me a win is like a World Cup."
A large part of why those chances slipped away, Alesi explained, lay under the engine cover. Ferrari's car of the era was savagely quick but brutally delicate. "Just to remind a bit, because we forgot about that — the engine we had at the time in Ferrari was a V12, 17,000 revs," he said. "So you have to cross your fingers and say please, please stay in one piece."
Even so, he remembers the machine with deep affection. "This car was the best car I drove in my whole career. Extremely fragile — I broke everything: pushrods, gearbox, engines, fuel pump," he said. "But except that, the car was always, everywhere, fast." In Montreal, the fragility nearly cost him even in victory: both Alesi and team-mate Gerhard Berger ran out of fuel on their in-laps, the win secured with barely a drop to spare.
Alesi spoke warmly of Berger, his partner for five seasons. "Many times people think we had a lot of fun together. It was true, because out of the car we had a very good relationship," he said. "A lot of respect, a lot of speed from him and from myself." He drew a sharp contrast with his former team-mate Alain Prost, whom he rated the fastest he ever raced alongside. "Alain didn't care about the team-mate. He cared only how to get his car fast," Alesi said, crediting the four-time champion with teaching him how to extract pace through setup.
The same Montreal weekend carried a sting. Schumacher's move to Ferrari for 1996 was beginning to surface, and it spelled the end for both Alesi and Berger. "That was the wish of Michael Schumacher, because when he accepted the proposition to join Ferrari, he was absolutely clear," Alesi said. "His position was choosing the team-mate. We had no chance to stay."
Carrying Villeneuve's 27 invites an obvious comparison, one Italian fans still make. Alesi is flattered but resists it. "It's fantastic to hear that, because he was my hero," he said. "But I cannot say yes, because Gilles is Gilles. I try to drive by instinct."
That instinct, he believes, set his generation apart from today's data-drenched grid. "In my days you drive as you feel, as you naturally feel," he said. "Never ever did an engineer say to me, you brake too late, or you have to brake in this place. They just said to me: how can we improve the car to go faster?"
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*Originally published on [Newsformula One](https://newsformula.one/article/jean-alesi-one-f1-win-beyond-the-grid). Visit for full coverage.*
