 French GP
And what a race it was! Jean made a reasonably good start, but didn't manage to keep close
to Rubens in the early part of the race. He was passed by Coulthard at lap 2, Coulthard
took the lead on lap 5 only to pull of on to the grass on lap 9 with electrical problems.
Than the rain came poring down... Jean pitted for wets on lap 22, and was at the
tail of Mika Hakkinen the next lap, only to spin of. Disappointment once again... I
had the Headings ready for this page, If only the car would last Jean would have won it!
But he was to eager to pass Mika. To bad, but a great race and a fantastic drive by
Heinz-Harald Ferentzen who won in front of Mika Hakkinen and Rubens Barrichello on third
place.
 Qualifying
Yes! a wet qualifying, and who is that coming down the pit-lane first of all ?
Jean of course! Nothing more is to be said, Rubens made a great qualifying and beat Jean
by 4 tenth of a second to the pole. Almost all the others was waiting for the rain to
stop, but it didn't :) Second on the grid was even more than we could expect. With
Jean you'll never know that's why he is so great!
 Friday
practice...
..and a good perfor- mance with the seventh time showing that he still know how to drive a
formula one car. A heavy crash with the car upside down at the end of the session, it
looked really scary but jean could walk away thank god!
 Preview
Jean debuted in formula 1 in the French GP in 1989 at Paul Richard, and what a
debut! He came in 4th with Alain Prost in the McLaren-Honda taking the checqered
flag first followed by Nigel Mansell in the Ferrari, third was Patrese in Williams and
fourth as you already know Mr. Giovanni Alesi! However at this race my personal feeling
was with the Swede Stefan Johansson who came in fifth driving the Onyx-Ford. But now the
world saw a driver who was spectacular as few. And he still entertains us 16 weekends a
year.
Magny Cours 1998 This was Jean Alesi's comments after last years race:
"We were unlucky to score points today. At one
stage Fisichella hit the back of my car, but that just made me laugh because he was trying
to pass where there was no possibility to do so. Later Frentzen hit me in the last corner,
for a similar reason. I thought I was going to score a point, but there was nothing I
could do about Coulthard at the end. My car was suddenly oversteering more, and when I
stopped in the parc ferme there was oil on the rear tyres. I think maybe there was a leak
of some kind; possibly that brush with Frentzen caused some damage.
The good thing is that the car was very consistent. It was fast enough to have scored
points. Last week I was very happy after the Test here; today I confirmed that
feeling"
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