F1 ICONS: Jean Alesi on his admiration for Ferrari great Gilles Villeneuve

Jean Alesi was renowned as a passionate driver during his time in Formula 1, racing for the likes of Tyrrell, Ferrari, Benetton, Sauber, Prost and Jordan between 1989 and 2001. However, his memories of F1 as a child are limited, owing to the fact it was not broadcast as much as it is now.

But there is one memory that stands out – the great Gilles Villeneuve's Monaco triumph in 1981. In our latest edition of F1 Icons, the race-winning Frenchman explains why he admires the similarly passionate Canadian so much...

When I was very young, F1 was not as popular as it is now, so there wasn’t much opportunity to watch it on TV. We had the Rallye Monte-Carlo close to our home in Avignon, where I grew up, and in France we had 24 hours of Le Mans too. So my memories of being a child are of motor racing, but not F1 so much.

Avignon and Paul Ricard were very close though and, when I was a kid, they used to do winter testing for F1 at Paul Ricard. I had the chance to go there, to be next to the drivers, to see the cars, to go and watch at the corners. It was fantastic.

The first real memory I have of F1 was the win of Gilles Villeneuve at Monaco in 1981. It was just amazing, because it was so spectacular, the way he was driving, and the way the commentator was describing his race. I was transfixed by watching that, you know, and that is my first real memory of Formula 1.

I grew up in an era of Formula 1 where the driving style of individual drivers was evident. It was clear to see the driving style of an Alain Prost versus an Ayrton Senna, for example – to talk about the legends! Some drivers had V8 engines, some had V10s, some had V12s and it makes the aerodynamics different on the different cars, and the drivers had to adapt.

I’m sometimes asked if I modeled my driving style on Gilles, but I think that's impossible. I just drove by instinct all my life. People accuse Gilles of driving recklessly, but he wasn't reckless. For me, he was doing the maximum from the limit of the car, and he was doing the maximum not to stop the car on the side of the circuit.

When he raced in Canada with a damaged front wing, for example, he tried to continue because he said the car could go on. That is one of the reasons we love Gilles.

Unfortunately, I never had the chance to see Gilles race in the flesh before he died. I remember watching his death on the news. The accident was terrible because they showed everything – you could see his body flying into the fence. That was a very sad moment, because it's shocking to have a hero like that and then to see what happened to him.

Gilles was famous for racing with the number 27, and of course I'm linked with this number too. My boat's name is 27, and the 27 was for Ferrari fans the number to have.

When I moved to Ferrari, my team mate was Alain Prost. He had the 27 and I had the 28, and I was always saying that the day Alain leaves, I want to take his number – and it's what I did! And when Gerhard Berger came and joined me at Ferrari in 1993, he said ‘I want the 27’ and they said ‘no, it's Jean’s’. So the 27 was really the number of Ferrari.

In 1996, I got to race against Gilles’ son Jacques in Formula 1. When he came to F1, I was reading the newspaper and I was very upset with Jacques for some of the comments he made about his father and Gilles’ legacy.

Later, we were testing in Estoril and his manager asked me if I could give Jacques a lift on the flight back to Nice, because I was going to the South of France. And I said, yeah, no problem.

After the test, we were in the plane – and when we’d taken off, I said to Jacques, “Jacques, never ever say something like that about your father again. If you are here, it's because of your talent, it’s because of your passion, whatever – but you are the son of Gilles Villeneuve, the hero of the heroes.”

I was really angry. And he told me, no, it’s not really what I wanted to say. But I think it was difficult for him, of course, to lose his father when he was a child, and I'm sure inside of him, he has a kind of… not frustration but pain.