"Jacques Villeneuve
scares me; he’s a crazy driver" muses ex-F1 driver
Jean Alesi. " That move was totally incredible!
Impossible! ". Coming from Jean, remembered
for his audacity and racing mettle, it’s a comment that
passes without disregard.
Damon Hill, Villeneuve’s 1996 Williams-Renault
team-mate, recalls the incident with clarity.
"He was telling me and (race-engineer) Jock Clear during
the Portuguese Grand Prix weekend how he was planning
to overtake someone on the last corner. Impossible
. Totally mad . But, on the Sunday,
he did it. He overtook Michael Schumacher".
For Jacques Villeneuve, that bold maneuver is
the highlight of his racing career. Victories and
championships aside, he lives to seduce ‘the
edge’ ; that rush of natural ecstasy
which resides between the imaginable and the
impossible , between life and death
. That move in Portugal epitomises Jacques
Villeneuve’s early years in F1; defiant, heroic,
reckless, menacing – true racing rock’n’roll
. Flat-out, top-gear. Nowhere to overtake; nowhere to even
consider it. To try a move on the outside is insane,
unthinkable . Cue Jacques Villeneuve, the adrenaline-junkie
…
"I’m a romantic. My racing is romantic.
The way you are in the car, when you’re being
pushed to the limit, when your brain stops functioning,
when you go a little bit crazy, that’s when you see
people’s real personalities. I love it".
Villeneuve
1998+
1998. Jacques Villeneuve sums up his final
Williams season by branding his car "a lemon".
When JV’s closest friend and manager, Craig Pollock,
nips off to build a brand-new, cash-laden, Formula 1 team,
Jacques Villeneuve is hot on his heels to create a
‘custom-made’ outfit in the Schumacher/Ferrari
ilk.
"I wanted to build something new, and to
dream. After winning the championship it was a
new challenge ".
If Villeneuve’s character was tested, it
didn’t show in his racing verve. When he rolled
the 001 spectacularly trying to take Eau Rouge flat,
he jumped out of the car, laughed, signed a few autographs,
and reported with a huge grin, "that was the best
crash I’ve ever had! "
When you’re not fighting at the front you tend
to have a lot of problems because you tend to
overdrive," Jacques explained. "Some are problems that
wouldn’t be there if you were in a quick car because
you wouldn’t be as much on the limit of the car.
"You try to go quicker than the car can
actually go because nobody is happy being twelfth
or slower ", he added.
The 2001-spec BAR003 was the culmination of
two years of steadfast development, thousands of
miles of track-time, and immeasurable blood,
sweat and (gallons of) tears. Villeneuve hops into the
car for the first time, does three shakedown laps, and
reports back to the pits. "The car is terrible
".
BAR 004 - "The car handles well", said
Villeneuve, "its just too slow
".
Villeneuve Vs Schumacher
...It is now almost five years since JV was challenging
the German at the front of the grid, but there are
many in the paddock who believe that Jacques
is still the driver Schumacher really fears.
...For the past four years Gibson has seen
Jacques up close at BAR and he insists that Jacques
still has what it takes to do what he did in 1997
– beat Schumacher to the championship.
...Naturally, he was asked if he missed fighting
with Michael, to which JV replied: "He
remembers fighting with me, and he remembers getting
beaten. "If I get in a good car and fight him, it
will be in the back of his mind. So there's no problem with
that."
...However, asked by TSN-Racing about being
Schumacher’s team-mate in a situation in which
no team orders were imposed, JV replied: "It would
be a fun fight. It would definitely be very enjoyable."
"But I’m not sure that he’d enjoy
that ," he added. "He’s never been in a
position to fight like that before. He always protected
himself – and that’s good for him. So I don’t
think it will happen by the time he retres."
THE RACETRACK ROMEO Jacques Villeneuve has
had a relationship with Dannii Minogue for
a long time, but their 'affair' seems to be over
now. Dannii is a famous singer and actress, just like
her sister Kylie. It's said that Jacques and Dannii still
are excellent friends.
Click on image to enlarge it!
After putting his Williams on pole position for
his F1 debut, Villeneuve scored three wins and took
the championship battle with teammate Damon Hill down
to the wire. At Estoril he also earned the ultimate respect
of the F1 world by doing the unthinkable - passing Michael
Schumacher round the outside.
