When Alesi was reunited with his “dream” F1 racer

New sponsor, a change of driver. Camel tobacco money is a welcome fillip for minnow Tyrrell and its previously plain blue 018. But it means Marlboro-backed Michele Alboreto – the team’s last grand prix winner from way back in 1983 – can make his excuses and leave mid-season.

Incoming is some French-Sicilian chap who is doing good things in Formula 3000 with Eddie Jordan’s Camel-backed Reynard. But Ken Tyrrell has little idea what he should expect from blue-eyed Jean Alesi.

He’s quick. That much is obvious from Friday’s sessions. But traffic catches him out on Saturday and he lines up for his maiden grand prix down in 16th. That’s OK: he’s far enough back to avoid the first-corner carnage caused by Mauricio Gugelmin’s aerobatics in his Leyton House.

That’s more than can be said for the other Tyrrell of Jonathan Palmer. From the start, Palmer soldiers on with undertray damage, while Alesi flies… in a good way. He runs second for a while to leader Alain Prost, before Riccardo Patrese and Nigel Mansell come past. Still, fourth on his grand prix debut. A star is born.

“It was just an opportunity,” Alesi reflects today of the 1989 French Grand Prix. “When you are a young driver you don’t care about anything other than reaching the point of your dream, which is F1.

“In my mind when I did Paul Ricard I thought, ‘If everything goes well I’ll stop F3000.’ After the GP I had the opportunity to continue. But when I said to Eddie, ‘Thank you so much for your help, now I will just concentrate on F1’, he was really upset: ‘You have to f****** win this championship, then do what you want!’

“We had a big argument… In the end I won the F3000 championship one race early, which was fantastic. A big gift I was able to give to Eddie.”

Alesi is speaking to us after an emotional reunion with both the Eddie Jordan Racing Reynard and the newly restored Tyrrell 018/2 you see here, back at Paul Ricard for the Historic French GP.

Memories come rushing back for Alesi on reacquaintance with car that “made my life”

Photo by: Peter Summers

“The Tyrrell 018 is my dream car,” Alesi gushes, reflecting on his demo laps. “It was the car in which I did my first GP, after which I did 200 more. It made my life. This car was like a glove, it fitted really well and driving it again brought back a lot of memories.

“I was only disturbed because they put an extra dash readout on the steering wheel, with shift lights. We didn’t have that with Uncle Ken!”

James Hanson’s Speedmasters is the current guardian of chassis 018/2 – Alesi’s 1989 French GP mount – and also the sister 018/1. It’s a welcome revival for an important model that briefly checked Tyrrell’s sad decline into makeweight backmarker.

The final season of the 1980s represented a key F1 turning point, too – one that Ken Tyrrell had lobbied for and now grabbed with relish. Gone were ‘superpower’ high-boost, small-capacity turbos, in favour of a return to good old rev-happy, eardrum-piercing natural aspiration.

“Leaving Italy for England was a shock, but working at Tyrrell was magic. My two and a half years there were the best of my life" Jean-Claude Migeot

A new generation of 3.5-litre V8s, V10s and V12s were harnessed to a grid of shrink-wrapped, aerodynamically svelte missiles. Among the prettiest, and most effective comparative to its budget, was the elegant Tyrrell 018.

The team had gained a head start on the new era by ditching its unloved Renault turbo after just one season. For 1987, a Cosworth DFZ, familiar as an evolution of the previously ubiquitous DFV around which Tyrrell’s F1 world had been built, powered the team to the one-off Colin Chapman Cup for non-turbo squads – and a revitalising sixth in the overall constructors’ standings – while Jonathan Palmer claimed the associated Jim Clark Trophy for drivers.

But the rot set back in during 1988. Palmer scored just five points and new team-mate Julian Bailey qualified only six times in a recalcitrant 017B. 

That’s why a new broom swept through the team’s Ockham woodyard in the summer of 1988. Maurice Philippe, designer of the revered Lotus 72 and a Tyrrell mainstay since 1978, was out.

Alesi ran as high as second on his Formula 1 debut and ended the day with a highly creditable fourth place

Photo by: Sutton Images

Incoming from Ferrari was ex-Hesketh, Wolf and Fittipaldi designer Harvey Postlethwaite, along with his aerodynamicist friend and ally Jean-Claude Migeot. The duo left Ferrari in the wake of founder Enzo’s death in August 1988, departing because of “political reasons”, according to Migeot.

“I trusted Harvey,” says Migeot of his friend who died in 1999. “Tyrrell in 1988 was quite a disaster. But Harvey and I had such a good relationship within Ferrari and had shared many ideas without being able to realise them.

“So I said, ‘OK, I’m going with you.’ Leaving Italy for England was a shock, but working at Tyrrell was magic. My two and a half years there were the best of my life.”

They arrived to find a team in transition, with a new factory in build. “We worked in a Portakabin,” recalls Migeot. “The famous wood shed [in which Jackie Stewart’s championship-winning Tyrrells had been built in the early 1970s] was still being used, but now for storage. It was still there with the famous board: ‘Keep out. This means you!’.”

The Tyrrell 018 was born from seeds sown in Maranello. “We did the 018 from what we already had in mind,” adds Migeot. “It could have been a red Ferrari.” 

The car featured an on-trend high airbox and a slimline nose that housed a front suspension innovation: a novel single damper within the double wishbone layout. The so-called mono shock was mounted just ahead of the instrument panel and operated via a transverse rocker and pushrods.

A double wishbone pushrod arrangement featured at the waisted rear, within which a new Tyrrell-designed six-speed manual gearbox was longitudinally mounted ahead of the rear axle, driving a Brian Hart-tuned Cosworth DFR V8.

The Tyrrell 019 that followed in 1990 broke new ground thanks to its anhedral front wing and raised nose Migeot had first devised five years earlier during wind tunnel tests at Renault. But the foundation for his most famous creation was rooted in the 018: “I was already thinking about what would be the 019 but there was no way we could risk to do something radical.

Alesi settles back into chassis 018/2 – currently owned by James Hanson’s Speedmasters

Photo by: Peter Summers

“So the 018 was mechanically simple – except one thing and that is the mono shock. It was the only thing we decided to risk.”

Palmer was retained for a third consecutive season in 1989, while Ken Tyrrell was delighted to snap up Alboreto who, like Postlethwaite and Migeot, had found himself surplus to requirements at Ferrari. 

The team began the season in Brazil with the 017B before a lone 018 was rushed from the factory to the second round at Imola. On home ground, Alboreto was initially handed chassis 018/1 for the model’s grand prix debut – only for the Italian to suffer the humiliation of failing to qualify. That allowed Tyrrell to switch Palmer, who had just squeaked onto the grid in the 017B in 25th, into the 018 for the race – in which he scored a point for sixth place.

In 018/2, Alboreto shook off his Imola dismay to score vital points for Tyrrell at Monaco, finishing fifth. Then in Mexico, Alboreto qualified seventh and raced to third, behind only Ayrton Senna’s McLaren and Patrese’s Williams. It would be the last podium of his F1 career.

“If you had the confidence to go into the corner with high energy, you were absolutely fast. That was my driving style” Jean Alesi

Migeot says Alboreto was “uncomfortable” with the mono shock front suspension because it made the car “so direct and reactive”. They worked hard to make the car more driveable and finally found a solution – but too late for Alboreto following his sponsor-related departure.

“The car was very stiff at the start, we didn’t understand we could introduce flexibility into the rocker,” explains Migeot. “But when Jean Alesi came he loved that quality or problem, depending on your perspective, because the way the car was going into the corner suited his style.”

“It was unique,” states Alesi. “You had a very positive front end, so the car was very sharp going into the corner and then it had a solid support, a very stiff front [roll]bar. If you had the confidence to go into the corner with high energy, you were absolutely fast. That was my driving style. When I drove the car I couldn’t have something better than that.”

Migeot says that Alesi’s on-point style masked the car’s knife-edge handling trait until it ran in the wet at Spa. “It was so undriveable in those conditions we understood we had to do something,” Migeot explains.

A star was born at the 1989 French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard

Photo by: Paul-Henri Cahier / Getty Images

“Harvey had included a very stiff Belleville spring on each side of the front mono rocker, but never thought to use it to tune the car as a front anti-roll bar. Now he found a rubber O-ring which could be squeezed in. The car became instantly easy in the wet and was all understeer on a dry track.

“In one lap we proved to ourselves not only the mono shock was not a mistake, but that we were stupid enough to have the best set-up parameter on board and had not been using it! From then on setting up the car was so easy and quick. We could have made the car good for Michele had he stayed for longer.”

Migeot recalls his and Postlethwaite’s initial alarm at the prospect of the relatively unknown Alesi stepping in at Ricard. That was wiped away by the star debut.

“Because we were both French we became very close,” says Migeot. “‘This is an English team, you have to speak in English.’ That was Ken! But I got on very well with Jean in terms of understanding what he was saying about the car.

“I was able to translate to improve the set-up. He was very young. A big talent, sometimes too emotional, very difficult to keep him cold when things went wrong. But one of the best drivers I worked with.”

Through the rest of the season, Alesi used 018/2 to further his F1 experience at Silverstone, Hockenheim and the Hungaroring, then added more points with a fifth place at Monza. He missed the Belgian and Portuguese GPs to win Jordan his F3000 title, with Johnny Herbert playing substitute.

Herbert too had finished fourth on his grand prix debut, in Rio for Benetton at the start of 1989, but had been dropped because he was still recovering from devastating foot injuries incurred in his F3000 crash at Brands Hatch in August 1988.

Now given a brief lifeline by Tyrrell, Herbert made little impression in his two appearances for the team. Alesi was back for the Spanish GP in chassis 018/5 and scored more points in fourth.

The end of the turbo era gave Tyrrell a fighting chance with its Cosworth DFR V8

Photo by: JEP

Meanwhile, Palmer found himself spiralling to what would be the end of his F1 career. Following his sixth at Imola, the Briton continued with chassis 018/1, coming close to scoring again at Phoenix. He was running fourth on the Arizona street circuit until, six laps from the finish, he ran out of fuel, to be classified an eventual ninth.

The chassis’ last GP appearance was as Palmer’s car at the pivotal Paul Ricard race. Alesi’s debut proved the beginning of the end for his team-mate.

Migeot remains perplexed by Palmer’s unravelling across the 1989 season: “Jonathan loved the car and was very fast, but he lost his talent when he met Jean. The young chap was faster than him at the second race and he couldn’t understand.

“At the penultimate race [Suzuka] he qualified slowest, then didn’t qualify at all for the last one [in Adelaide]. It was amazing because he was a very fast guy, and very bright with his engineering background. I don’t know, it must have been psychological.”

“The ride height could be adjusted by the driver. Jean wasn’t able to use it much… but you can imagine someone like Michael Schumacher would have changed it every corner” Jean-Claude Migeot

As Palmer departed, Tyrrell could reflect on a season of stark improvement. From just eight starts, Alesi had scored eight points to finish a fine ninth in the drivers’ championship. Tyrrell was fifth in the constructors’, its best placing since 1979.

Encouraged, Postlethwaite and Migeot pushed on. “The 018 and 019 are the same car mechanically,” says Migeot. “The rear of the car, including the gearbox, is absolutely identical. The front is of course completely different.”

He then drops in that the 018 featured another clever piece of innovation, beyond its mono shock suspension, that carried over to the 1990 car: “We had an active actuator on the front powered by a small battery under the seat. The ride height could be adjusted by the driver through this.

“This is something nobody has discovered, although we were not the only ones using such technology at the time. The driver could change from corner to corner if he wanted. Jean wasn’t able to use it much… but you can imagine someone like Michael Schumacher would have changed it every corner.”

Alesi famously made Senna work for the 1990 Phoenix win

Photo by: Paul-Henri Cahier / Getty Images

Into the new season, the 018’s competitive life was prolonged as its successor was readied. Alesi famously battled Ayrton Senna for victory in Phoenix, where new Tyrrell signing Satoru Nakajima scored a point in sixth driving 018/2. No wonder Alesi recalls Phoenix 1990 with much affection. 

“Of course it was a surprise for everyone, but also for me,” he reckons. “I enjoyed it so much. When I turned in for the first corner in P1, in my mind I was thinking about my friends watching the race on TV and dreamed to have at least one lap leading.

“In the end I led half of the race [34 of 72 laps]. When Senna came I knew I had no chance, but I said, ‘OK, let’s try to have a good time with him’ – and that’s what I did. Afterwards, we talked. He was very curious about the technology of other cars. My car was lighter than his at the beginning so he had no chance to follow me, because with the V10 he had much more fuel to carry.

“He said it had been ‘a good fight’. He enjoyed the race. In the press conference he said, ‘I had a tough winter and to start the championship like this gives me some goodwill for the rest of the season.’”

The 018 signed off in Rio (Nakajima finishing eighth), before the 019 and its ground-breaking front end caused a stir on its debut at Imola. 

Migeot cherishes his happy memories of his seasons at Tyrrell in 1989 and 1990, before he was lured back to Ferrari. “In 1990 we had a very good time disturbing the big teams, especially with the Pirelli tyres – which were the wrong choice, by the way!” he laughs.

“Those tyres meant the car was s*** for the races! You want to finish races, not qualify well. In that respect 1990 was not that good, it should have been a lot better. With Goodyear we would have finished in the points regularly.

“Ken Tyrrell was fantastic, he was my hero. He had a huge knowledge, especially how to teach drivers. That’s what he enjoyed with Jean. He was passionate to understand and to trust people. He raced to have fun and it was fantastic when you can get both together.

“It’s always said Tyrrell was a family team, which is true – but it was a professional family too.”

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Back where it all began for Alesi – although there were no shift lights in the days of Uncle Ken

Photo by: Peter Summers