His subsequent title with Jordan in 1989 led to a Formula One drive with Tyrrell, replacing Michele Alboreto from the 1989 French Grand Prix onwards, where he finished fourth.

He signed for Ferrari in 1991 to partner Alain Prost, scoring several podiums across five seasons before taking his sole victory at the Canadian Grand Prix in 1995.

Alesi then competed in the all-star Speedcar Series in both of its seasons, as well as entering the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2010 and the Indianapolis 500 in 2012, before retiring from motor racing in 2012.

[1][2] His father ran an automotive bodywork repair garage in the town, where Alesi spent much of his formative years and developed a love of cars.

[3] In addition to spending time in the family garage, Alesi's father also provided his first taste of motorsport, being a keen amateur competitor in rallying and hillclimb events.

Prior to the 1989 French Grand Prix, Ken Tyrrell had signed a deal to run Camel cigarette sponsorship on his previously unsponsored cars.

There were signs of Alesi's talent in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza where he qualified the under powered Tyrrell in 5th place less than a second slower than Senna's pole time.

At both the original and restart (caused by Derek Warwick's Lotus crashing heavily), Alesi passed the more powerful V12 Ferrari of reigning World Champion Alain Prost for 3rd place and within a lap would be harrying McLaren's Gerhard Berger for 2nd.

However due to Williams delaying the announcement of his signature with the reasoning eventually given they were pursuing Ayrton Senna, Alesi eventually grew tired of the constant delays, as a result he then opted instead to sign for Ferrari as the second driver alongside fellow countryman Alain Prost, and the Ferrari team had to pay Williams a fine of four million dollars.

He finished third in the Spanish Grand Prix, after a strong wet-weather drive, in spite of making contact with Gerhard Berger and Mika Hakkinen during the race.

[16] Mainly due to the unreliability of the "active" suspension of the F93A, there came four retirements in the first five races of the season and an eighth-place finish at Brazil, causing Alesi to even consider leaving Ferrari.

[20] He returned with a fifth place in Monaco and finished a strong third in Canada, but almost lost the position at the end of the race due to a gearbox problem.

At Monza, he took his first pole position and led until his first pit stop, when his gearbox failed in the pitlane, and in anger, he drove back to Avignon at speeds in excess of 200 km/h.

However, at the Canadian Grand Prix, on his 31st birthday, he won his first and only race, helped by Michael Schumacher encountering mechanical problems with ten laps to go.

[25] This broke the record for the largest number of consecutive races without a win for a Ferrari driver (67) which was subsequently exceeded by Felipe Massa in 2013.

He had a heated argument with Jean Todt after the Portuguese Grand Prix due to refusing to obey team orders to defer to team-mate Gerhard Berger in spite of having more points in the championship.

After a fifth place in the Pacific Grand Prix, he produced an outstanding wet-weather drive in Japan, making a powerful comeback after being angered by a stop-go penalty for a jump start that he felt he did not commit, but then retired with a driveshaft failure, and he crashed into Michael Schumacher in his final race for Ferrari at Australia.

At the Italian Grand Prix, following the retirement of Damon Hill, he led until the pit stops, when he was overtaken by Michael Schumacher, who had a better race strategy.

[29] The car produced good results in pre-season testing,[30][31] but Ross Brawn, Nigel Stepney and Rory Byrne joined Schumacher at Ferrari, and the Benetton's form during the season was erratic.

He took pole position at the Italian Grand Prix which sent the fans into raptures despite the fact that he no longer drove for Ferrari[33] and led early in the race but lost out to David Coulthard's McLaren due to a slow pit stop.

Alesi's reputation was damaged during his spell at Benetton, having failed to win a Grand Prix despite having had a competitive car, and suffered by comparison with Schumacher at Ferrari.

[34] Alesi moved on to the Swiss team Sauber, and was paired with Johnny Herbert and they went on to form the most experienced driver line-up for the 1998 season.

Although Alesi's results declined relative to previous years, his reputation improved again, for he put in many strong performances that masked the deficiencies of his Sauber.

Late in the season, he criticised the car and the Peugeot engines, so much so that in the French Grand Prix, the technicians of the Transalpine went on strike for five minutes.

[41] In March 2002, Alesi – who was set to drive for Mercedes that season in DTM – was recruited by McLaren to work on tyre development, managing 224 laps over three days at Paul Ricard in a 2001-spec McLaren-Mercedes MP4-16B, before staying on to have a run in his new Merc CLK-DTM racer.

Alesi joined a number of other ex-Formula One drivers (Christian Danner, Johnny Herbert, Stefan Johansson, Ukyo Katayama, JJ Lehto, Gianni Morbidelli, Jacques Villeneuve and Alex Yoong) in the inaugural season of the Far & Middle Eastern Speedcar Series.

On 13 October 2009, Alesi tested an AF Corse Ferrari F430 GT2 at Maranello, on the same day that Felipe Massa drove an F1 car for the first time after his accident in Hungary earlier in the year.

On 18 December 2012, Alesi unofficially announced his intention to quit racing when, in an interview with L'Equipe, he conceded that for next year he had given up on finding the sponsorship required for a second attempt.

In January 2011, along with the launch of their new car, Lotus Renault GP announced that they had hired Alesi as an ambassador for the team and test driver for the T125 single-seater project.

[50] On an episode during season 17 of the BBC TV show Top Gear, Alesi helped presenter Jeremy Clarkson test one of the Lotus T125 single seaters.