Jean Alesi is convinced that his return to top flight racing with Lotus at the 2012 Indy 500 is the right decision.
The Frenchman, whose last GP was in Japan in 2001, joked that he wanted to do well because otherwise his family would “give me a lot of shit.”
Alesi says that testing in the T125 customer ‘track day’ car made him realise that he still wanted to drive single seaters. He has already experienced the Indy track in the Dallara simulator.
“It can be a surprise for a lot of my friends, because for a long time I’m not racing at this level,” said Alesi today. “Of course when I stopped F1 I did the DTM, and then I played around let’s say with Speedcar and last year the GT. But I had a lot of will inside of me to be back in a good and competitive car. But it was difficult to find something and to find the friends to talk about that.
“You cannot go around and say, ‘I would dream to be back in a single-seater,’ and then you don’t know what to do. After F1 there is not really something left for someone like me, because now I have age, I cannot go back to an F3 or other kind of single-seater.
“When I went back into what we call the T125, which is an F1 for customers, it made me really crazy about being back in a top racing car. Of course with Lotus behind me they said, ‘OK, if you want to do something good, we have Indianapolis.’
“Why not? And I said let me check how it is, and I checked carefully. It’s not something I do because I want absolutely to race, but I want really to be able to be competitive, I don’t want to look ridiculous because I have not only my fans, I have family, I have kids, and they will give me a lot of shit if I am not doing well.
“I started already to go on the simulator, I started to do more mileage with the T125, and here we are.”
Alesi said he wasn’t put off by problems other ex-F1 drivers faced when trying Indycars.
“In my case it never crossed my thoughts. I went immediately to DTM and I had a fantastic time with Mercedes. To be honest when you have not a group behind you to go and to find the team and to look for a new world like that is difficult. The reason why it’s easier for me to think about Indianapolis is the company I belong to now is Lotus. Next year we are building an engine, so I’m really much more into the technical side than going there and saying in which team is there room?
“It’s going to be much more interesting because we’re going to have this V6 turbo soon. We’re going to test in December, and I will do it.”
Alesi insists that he will only do Indy and says he is working on his fitness – not because the cars are hard to drive, but to aid recovery from potential injury…
Adam Cooper F1 