Former F1 racer Jean Alesi speaks about the latest driver changes as he added what he expects from 2020 with multi-driver fights.
Recently in F1, we’ve seen some high-profile driver transfers bear undesirable results. Some examples of this have been Fernando Alonso’s switch from Ferrari to McLaren in 2015, and Daniel Ricciardo’s move away from Red Bull to Renault in 2019.
And in the eyes of Alesi – a driver that was at the center of just about every driver market news story in the mid-1990s – this is due in part to the fact that the chief engineer doesn’t follow their driver from team to team in the modern era as they used to.
“Probably this new generation of F1, it is even more difficult than in my time, because the stuff like movement of chief designer is not like it used to be in my time,” said Alesi to Sky Spots. “It is kind of luck, to have a good career move at a good time.
“When I moved to Ferrari, and then to Benetton, the engineer always moved with you. That’s something that doesn’t happen today. You need to be a bit lucky in your choice.” One more high-profile driver to have made a career move of substance lately has been Sebastian Vettel, who has left Ferrari, but not yet announced his future plans.
The Vettel drama was another thing acknowledged by the former Ferrari driver, who – like many others – was surprised by the announcement. He also hypothesised about what might have happened, but went no further than, ‘something didn’t go like it was supposed to’.
“I have massive respect for Sebastian because he is a four-time world champion,” said Alesi. “He put his talent and everything into this challenge to be world champion with Ferrari, and he failed. He failed but not because it’s his fault or not because it’s the fault of the team, something didn’t go well.
“I was actually very surprised of this move being announced before the championship had started. But that means a lot I think for someone like him to be brave enough to say ‘it’s enough, I will finish the season with Ferrari, but next year I don’t know what I will do’. But for sure, something didn’t go like it was supposed to.
“When you welcome a world champion like Sebastian, you want to give everything you can. The second thing is if you are able to. And when the team is now able to give what the champion is asking then the trouble starts. If I take the Michael Schumacher example, he took my place but he arrived with a full technical team.
“He worked with the same people he used to work with at Benetton to be world champion. It took him four years to be world champion, but it happened. Sebastian’s situation was different. He arrived in a team and he tried to teach and to bring the technical team to work as he wants. But he didn’t bring with him Adrian Newey, so that changed a lot.”
As is evident, Vettel’s switch tipped over the first domino, and triggered a chain-reaction of driver transfers, all of which were announced within a span of mere days, and one of which saw Ricciardo move to McLaren, with Carlos Sainz taking the German’s place.
The game of musical chairs, and this switch in particular, left Renault with a seat unfilled, and thus far, they have yet to announce a filler. Some have presented Guanyu Zhou as an option, while others have theorised that Renault might take in Fernando Alonso.
To Alesi, Alonso returning would be the preferred scenario. According to the Frenchman, it’s a likely one too. “Daniel Ricciardo is in and out of the car, a top guy,” he said. “Everybody loves him. I really hope he will be able to make something with McLaren that he doesn’t have with Renault. And of course, Fernando Alonso is a legend.
“If he can come back that’s nice. I’m 56 next week and if someone were to ask me to come back, I’d come back. Why? Because of the emotions and doing what we love. For sure, Fernando in his blood he still has Formula 1.
“Driving a sportscar is nice, but you share the car — you know what I’m talking about. If he has the opportunity, he will come back,” summed up Alesi. Interestingly, most of the silly season action kicked off before the season even began, and drivers and teams have the delay of the F1 season start due to COVID-19 to thank for that.
As was explained at the time of the announcements, all parties decided to make the call early in case the season was never run, so as to avoid getting caught out. However, it has since been confirmed that the season will be starting in Austria with a double-header, before the F1 circus moves on to the Hungarian GP, all three of these rounds being at circuits that Max Verstappen is very fond of.
Because of this, many have predicted that it will be advantage Verstappen/Red Bull in the former stages of the year, and while Alesi didn’t speak on this directly, he did state that the Red Bull driver excites him in a big way. “In my time, I would say I loved Senna because of his aggressive driving style, I don’t like Alain because when he drove he looked like a grandmother on the motorway,” he said.
“So, it was very easy to understand the driving style. Not anymore. Now, all the drivers drive with the same tyres, they have the same shoes, if they overheat the tyres, or they make a flat-spot, their race is over. So what I like is the combination of drivers.
“I love to see in Silverstone, Max with Charles. That was an amazing race. I loved to see Rosberg with Lewis, fighting in Bahrain. These kinds of races give you a lot of emotion. The combination of some drivers is very, very nice to watch. My most exciting combination is Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.”
Here’s Jean Alesi on possible F2/F3 crisis
Here’s Daniel Ricciardo on his recent F1 move
Here’s Michael Masi on changes to be seen in F1 2020
