That year, he had won the championship before the season ended, so Eddie secured him a drive in F1 to replace Michele Alboreto for the Tyrell team from the French Grand Prix onwards.

Nick Burrows (now Jarno Trulli's number one mechanic), Andy Stevenson (test team chief mechanic), Phil Howell (race team mechanic) and Dave Perrott (test team mechanic) have been working for Eddie Jordan during Alesi's twelve years away from the team. F1jordan.com caught up with them to find out what they remember about the good old days, when Nick and Andy worked on Jean's car, and Phil and Dave worked on that of his team mate Martin Donnelly.

Andy Stevenson recalls, 'In F3000, I looked after the gearbox and rear end of Jean's car. I have great memories of him. He was very fun to be around and an incredibly talented driver. He had fantastic car control and was a very exciting racing driver, spectacular to watch in qualifying due to how much he would drive the car on the edge and really push it and I think he's still the same today. When he came for his seat fitting I was amazed at just how much his personality is still the same, even though he's twelve years older than when I last worked with him.'

'There were two of us on the car – myself and Nick Burrows who was the number one mechanic and we were called the Angry Brothers. We worked together on the same car for a whole year but argued all the time. It's not that we didn't like each other but were just both very competitive. Nick and I are actually good friends, but Jean used to find us very amusing.'

'Back in those days, motor racing generally and F3000 were much more relaxed than F1 is now. In the evenings of a race meeting you went out with the drivers much more and there were a lot more casual debriefs done in the evening. There were races in Vallelunga, Silverstone, Pau, Enna (Sicily), Birmingham, Brands Hatch, Le Mans, Spa, Jerez and Dijon. Some people didn't like travelling in the little planes we were hiring so ended up having to drive everywhere in a little mini bus.'

'There were nine races in the championship but they added Spa as a tenth race although it wasn't a championship round. Jean didn't actually finish all the races that season as he'd already won the championship before the end of the year so he moved to F1 with Tyrrell. He must have done eight championship races with us and Spa, but missed that last championship round in Dijon when Ricard Rydell drove for us.'

'We had three victories that year, in Pau, Spa and Birmingham, but our best race from 1989 was definitely Birmingham. It was a street circuit. It was the best and most exciting race that year for lots of reasons. It was an exciting weekend as Donnelly, our other driver, had a big crash so we stayed up all night to build him a new car which was actually fun, and Jean held pole position, drove the fastest lap and won the race, so pretty good really. We had the biggest bottle of champagne you've ever seen.'

'Jean was entertaining to be with and socially, very light hearted – he took us on holiday to Chamonix at the end of the season - but once he's at work in the car, he's very serious, focused and professional.'

Jordan Grand Prix