Glenn Freeman

At the time, we just kind of assumed all the bad stuff was Ferrari's fault and all the good bits were Lacey being brilliant.

And I see why Benetton had that opinion.

They'd have gone, you know, Ferrari's still a bit basket-cased at this point.

If we pluck him out of there, you've got the raw speed, and then we'll kind of round off all the edges and turn him into something proper.

So, yeah, it's not a spoiler to say this doesn't work out.

But at the time, it's definitely logical.

It doesn't look like a kind of emotional, oh, Ferrari have taken our guy, we'll just take theirs.

Although there may have been some of that to come because Alessi was signed up swiftly.

It basically got announced at the same time that Schumacher's Ferrari deal was done.

But Benetton waited before choosing his teammate, before in the end going for his existing teammate at Ferrari, Gerhard Berger.

Braun says that Briatore did that deal without much consultation with the team and that Alessi went bananas when he heard Berger was coming as well because Berger was good at playing political games and screwing with Alessi's head.

That does appear to be backed up by others, including Alessi.

Jean said on Beyond the Grid that while he had a fantastic time being teammates with Berger, Gerhard was very good in the political way.

And sometimes I had to fight because I was discovering a situation I was not expecting.

That sounds quite diplomatic.

Benetton's Joanne Villadel Pratt said in Damien Smith's

Excellent book, Rebels of Formula One, which everyone should read.

There's a few references to it in this episode.

But in that episode, he said signing Alessi and Berger as a package was probably the worst thing that could happen to Ben Azzam as they arrived from Ferrari like spoiled kids.

He said Alessi had tremendous speed, but very little brains, and that he was quicker than Berger, but Berger would screw with his mind to mess Alessi up.