People

Gilles Alegoet

Gilles Alegoet started working in F1 since 1989, a graduate of mechanical engineering from the Ecole Centrale de Paris at Chatenay-Malabry - a college to which only one in 20 applicants are accepted and which produced such famous engineers as Louis Bleriot and Gustave Eiffel.

In 1986 he went to work as a systems engineer with the satellite division of France's national aircraft and armaments company Aerospatiale. He stayed for three years but, frustrated by the bureaucracy of a big company, was keen to take up the offer of Guy Ligier to work for his F1 team in 1989.

At the time Ligier was frustrated and humiliated by the constant failure of his team, and decided to recruit a completely new technical staff hand-picked by Frank Dernie. Dernie turned to French industry and launched the F1 careers of several engineers.

Initially Alegoet worked in the Ligier drawing office but in 1993 he was drafted into the race team to look after Mark Blundell. The following season he was Eric Bernard's engineer but worked with Johnny Herbert at the European Grand Prix after Johnny was hired away from Team Lotus by Tom Walkinshaw - who was working for both Benetton and Ligier at the time.

At the end of 1994, fed up with the disruptions going on at Ligier, Alegoet moved to Sauber. The first few races of 1995 were not easy as Karl Wendlinger was trying to recover from his injuries but by mid-season Alegoet was working with fellow countryman Jean-Christophe Boullion, Wendlinger's replacement. When Johnny Herbert joined the team at the start of 1996 Gilles began working with the idiosyncratic Englishman but he moved back to Ligier (now called Prost) in 1999.After Prost closed down Alegoet dropped out of F1 but re-emerged in 2004 as the technical director of Automobiles Ligier-Martini in France.