Jacques Villeneuve: F1’s ‘alternative’ Champion

Off-piste route to the top

Villeneuve’s racing career was as eccentric as his character, shaped in part by the gaping hole that was left in his life after May 1982, when his racing idol of a father was killed in a violent qualifying crash at Zolder. Jacques was just 11 when Gilles died.

Schooled in Switzerland, young Villeneuve went skiing rather than karting — although he’s always claimed downhill racing taught him everything he needed when he finally stepped into motorsport. The name clearly helped as sponsors were attracted by the family lineage and his father’s enduring legend.

He took a different path to most — of course he did. Italian Formula 3; a brave switch to Japan where he finished second to future Goodwood favourite Anthony Reid in the national F3 series; Formula Atlantic back in North America with support from the Player’s tobacco brand, which then carried him into IndyCar with a Forsythe/Green team essentially created around him.

A race winner in 1994, by the following season Villeneuve was the new star of American motorsport. He won the first round of 1995 in Miami, conquered the Indianapolis 500 in May, then completed the double by wrapping up the IndyCar title by season’s end. An amazing climb, an amazing achievement.

F1’s new superstar

Bernie Ecclestone greased the wheels of his F1 switch into a dominant Williams team. Ayrton Senna was dead, Alain Prost had retired, Nigel Mansell’s literally ill-fitting move to McLaren had ended swiftly in ignominy. F1 desperately need a new star. The son of Gilles Villeneuve, who also just happened to have the credibility of a newly minted Indy 500 win, was just the ticket. Following a toe-in-the-water test in August, Villeneuve was signed to join Damon Hill for 1996.

Few rookies, other than perhaps Lewis Hamilton in 2007, were as well prepared as Villeneuve, following an intensive winter testing campaign. But how he rocked up for his first Grand Prix at Albert Park’s inaugural race in Melbourne has gone down as one of the most strikingly impressive debuts in F1’s 75 years. He took pole position and was on course for victory, only for an oil line damaged in a brief off-track excursion to force him to cede to Hill. Bernie had his new superstar.

Thereafter, Hill gained the upper hand in a car Patrick Head and Adrian Newey had designed around him. Villeneuve credited Hill as a great team-mate to learn from, because of his work ethic as well as his obvious speed. Still, the Canadian scored his first win at the Nürburgring and added more at Silverstone, the Hungaroring and Estoril to keep the Championship alive until the final round at Suzuka. As Hill faced his bizarre exit from Williams, sacked as World Champion, 1997 was set up to be Villeneuve’s year.

That’s how it turned out, of course, but only after a season-long duel with Michael Schumacher and Ferrari. Twenty-eight years on from Villeneuve’s Championship year, it’s easy to forget just how good he was back then — although in a great car blessed by the hand of Newey it’s also true he made heavy weather of his title campaign.

A season of swinging fortune

In Newey’s last Williams before his switch to McLaren, Villeneuve quickly banished any prospect of incoming team-mate Heinz-Harald Frentzen stealing the limelight. In an FW18 developed around him, Villeneuve completely dominated the German. Frentzen won a single race, at Imola, as the Canadian logged up ten pole positions and seven victories. But beating Schumacher was a different story.

Pushed off by an overambitious Eddie Irvine at the first corner in Melbourne, Villeneuve got off the mark with victory in round two at Interlagos — but only after a restart saved him following a collision with Schumacher at the first turn.

He took the lead of the Championship with victory in Argentina, defeating Irvine on a three-stopper compared to the Northern Irishman’s two, but following gearbox problems at Imola and a virtuoso wet-weather performance from Schumacher in Monaco, the German ascended to the top of the standings. Then, an intelligent tyre-conserving victory from Villeneuve in Spain gave him the edge once more.

Fortunes continued to swing between the pair, but across the summer it began to appear Schumacher might be on course to end Ferrari’s Drivers’ Title drought dating back to Jody Scheckter in 1979. Villeneuve took a convincing win at Silverstone and lucked in at the Hungaroring when the Arrows of former team-mate Hill famously faltered with hydraulics failure in the final miles.

In contrast, Schumacher logged back-to-back wins in Canada and France, finished second in Germany to Gerhard Berger’s Benetton — where Villeneuve lamely spun out — and shone once again in mixed conditions at Spa. After the Belgian race, Schumacher led Villeneuve by 11 points.

After Monza, where Villeneuve and Schumacher could only finish fifth and sixth respectively, fortune swung back towards the Williams driver. Consecutive wins at the A1-Ring and Nürburgring lifted him into a nine-point lead. While Villeneuve had added 20 points to his tally, Schumacher had scored just one: a sixth in Austria, then a non-finish at the Nürburgring when, awkwardly, a Jordan driven by his brother Ralf had taken him out (and the other Jordan of Giancarlo Fisichella) at the first corner.

The Suzuka controversy

Two races to go. At Suzuka for the Japanese Grand Prix Villeneuve’s bid was seriously undermined by a disqualification. He was one of several drivers (another was Schumacher) to have failed to slow under yellow flags in a practice session — but this was not his first offence that year. The punishment was a draconian race ban, which he’d be forced to serve immediately. But Williams appealed, so Villeneuve started the race from the pole position he earned, albeit with a big asterisk against his name.

The race didn’t go to plan anyway. The upshot was Schumacher took the victory, Villeneuve finished fifth, but then Williams withdrew its appeal against the yellow flag penalty and Villeneuve was disqualified. He’d raced for nothing, and now headed to the European Grand Prix finale at Jerez with a one-point deficit to Schumacher.

Had there been a political conspiracy at play, at a time of negotiation over the next Concorde Agreement — the document by which F1’s commercial interests are governed? Or was Villeneuve simply bang to rights? Whatever, the state of the points table meant that Schumacher just had to finish ahead of Villeneuve to take the title.

Drama in Jerez

After a season in which the two protagonists had rarely met on track, it came down to what turned into one of the most memorable climaxes in F1 World Championship history. It started in qualifying when Villeneuve, Schumacher and Frentzen were all credited with identical times. What are the chances?

The following day, Schumacher beat Villeneuve off the line. The onus was now on the Williams driver to make a move, and it happened on lap 48, just after their second pitstops. Villeneuve appeared to catch Schumacher unawares at a right-hander, dived down the inside, and the Ferrari driver moved across. Three years earlier he’d pulled a similar ‘professional foul’ on Damon Hill to become World Champion. This time it backfired as Schumacher slid into the gravel and out of the race.

But this wasn’t over. Villeneuve had to coax his damaged car to the finish and needed to finish third. He let Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard through, as part of a pre-race collusion agreement between Williams and McLaren, so Häkkinen claimed his first F1 win and Villeneuve became World Champion. As for Schumacher, he was later thrown out of the 1997 World Championship for his dirty move, although strangely still kept his five wins from the season. F1 had never seen anything like it, before or since.

The strange twist was that as Villeneuve celebrated on the podium, he could have no way of knowing his incredible tally over the previous three seasons — an Indy 500 win, an IndyCar title, 11 Grand Prix wins and a World Championship — was as good as it would get. His choice to accept the challenge of starting from scratch with a British American Racing team built around him from 1999 was the beginning of a long, slow decline. His F1 career petered out after a cameo at Renault and an unhappy spell at Sauber-BMW.

So, one of the oddest careers of an F1 World Champion? Certainly. But no one can ever take away what he achieved over those crazy years in the mid-1990s. He’s sure to get a warm welcome at the Goodwood Revival where he is set to race in the prestigious RAC TT Celebration.

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