|
Gilles
Villeneuve
was born in Quebec on 18 January, 1950. He rose
up through snowmobile racing and Formula Atlantic. In fact he credits
some of his success to his snowmobiling days: "Every winter, you would
reckon on three or four big spills - and I'm talking about being thrown
on to the ice at 100 mph. Those things used to slide a lot, which taught
me a great deal about control. And the visibility was terrible!
Unless you were leading, you could see nothing, with all the snow blowing
about. Good for the reactions - and it stopped me having any worries about
racing in the rain." In 1976 he dominated the Formula Atlantic championship
with an Ecurie Canada team so impoverished that he was forced into the
role of spectator at the Mosport race because the team couldn't afford
to field an entry. This impressive performance against daunting odds earned
him a great deal of notice and a spot with McLaren. His first F1 race
(also the debut event for the turbo Renault) was at Silverstone in 1977
partnering James Hunt and Jochen Mass. Toward the end of the '77 season
Villeneuve had established a reputation as a promising talent, Teddy Mayer,
due partly to Marlboro sponsorship considerations, declined to keep Gilles
with McLaren, apparently leaving the promising young driver high and dry
for 1978. But in August of 1977 Maranello called. Enzo Ferrari said that
when he first met the diminutive Canadian, he was immediately reminded
of the great Nuvolari. Ferrari's obvious interest in Villeneuve prompted
Niki Lauda to jump ship at Canada in October, and Gilles began his short
but storied Ferrari career in a less than auspicious fashion. In the Mosport
race he left the course on someone else's oil. The next race, at Fuji,
saw him off again, but this time at the cost of some spectators' lives.
He would later remark that: "If someone said to me that you can have three
wishes, my first would have been to get into racing, my second to be in
Formula 1, my third to drive for Ferrari..." The first of Villeneuve's
six F1 wins came the next year, fittingly enough at Canada. All told he
won six Grands Prix. In 1979 he finished second in the championship to
teammate Jody Scheckter, the luster of whose reputation is today considerably
duller than that of Gilles. The quality of the cars that Gilles had at
his disposal was uneven, and much of his racing was against the last of
the world-conquering Lotuses, the ground effects 79. But for these
reasons he probably would have won several more races. It can be argued
that his method was not as conserving of his machinery is it might have
been, and that this contributed to his relatively low win total. Gilles
Villeneuve's all-or-nothing approach was well known. An example: at Watkins
Glen one year, qualifying on the first day on a soaked track, he left
his competitors scratching their heads after turning a lap eleven seconds
faster than anyone else. The author of this piece clearly remembers the
first photo he ever saw of Villeneuve. Actually, it was a picture of the
bottom his Ferrari as it flew off of some track somewhere. Gilles'
signature race was not a first, but a second. At the 1979 French Grand
Prix at Dijon, Renault and Jean-Pierre Jabouille posted the first win
for a modern turbo car. Rene Arnoux, running well, looked to make it a
Renault one-two. Villeneuve, however, asserted a definite au contraire
in a sliding, wheel-banging, tire-boiling duel with Arnoux that no witness
to it is likely to forget. Villeneuve's insane insistence that his slower
Ferrari could beat Arnoux's faster Renault was rewarded, and he finished
just ahead of the Frenchman. It is probably safe to say that this was
the most exciting race for second place in the history of motor racing.
Like certain other great drivers, including Clark and Senna, Villeneuve
was a curious mixture of seemingly disparate personality types. Lauda
wrote of him, "He was the craziest devil I ever came across in Formula
1...The fact that, for all this, he was a sensitive and lovable character
rather than an out-and-out hell-raiser made him such a unique human being".
Flying, snowmobiling or driving, he was a risk-taker of classic proportions.
Yet his fellow drivers said that on the track he was scrupulously fair
and did not put anyone's safety other than his own in jeopardy. This combination
of traits made him exceptionally popular not only with fans but with teammates
and opponents as well. He still remains even today a fan favorite in Canada,
Italy and in the rest of the F1 world. Gilles' bon ami did disappear on
one notable occasion, which may have contributed to his tragic and untimely
end. On the final lap at Imola in 1982 Pironi snuck past his unsuspecting
teammate, who had slowed feeling that the race was in hand, to snatch
the win. Villeneuve was uncharacteristically furious. Still feeling the
sting and out to prove something two weeks later at Zolder, while on his
way to the pits during Saturday qualifying, he came up behind the much
slower March of Mass. Gilles' in laps were often like other driver's
hot ones, and Mass pulled over to give him a free track, in the process
obstructing the pit entrance. The resulting collision sent the Ferrari
off in cartwheeling disintegration. Villeneuve was resuscitated at the
scene, but his injuries were mortal. He died in a local hospital that
evening.  If
his death was not greeted with great shock and surprise (everyone knew
his style), that was more than offset by the profound sadness it produced.
Even Arnoux, his adversary in the Dijon epic, confessed that he cried
the day Gilles died and the day after. In June, 1997 Canada issued a stamp
in honor of its favorite racing son. Villeneuve junior may now have more
wins than Villeneuve senior, but he has a way to go to match his father's
legend.
|
