Gilles Villeneuve would be 62 if he were still alive today. He was just 32 when he died, succumbing to injuries sustained during qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder.
Given the reverence with which he is remembered, Villeneuve Sr had a modest F1 record. Just 67 race starts and six wins. Incredibly promising, no doubt. However, the measure of Gilles Villeneuve is not in the tale of his statistics, but in the tales of admiration and respect from peers and fans alike.
Mario Andretti, 1978 World Champion, had this to say about Villeneuve: “At the wheel, Gilles would always give it his all. Nobody else ever drove quite like him: sideways in a fast way… there was only one like Gilles. I always wonder what career he would have had if it hadn’t been for that untimely death. A world championship was imminent, I’m sure.”
To honour the spirit of Gilles Villenueve, his son and 1997 World Champion, Jacques, will drive a Ferrari 312 T4 around Fiorano on 8 May, the 30th anniversary of his father’s death.
It should be a fitting tribute for one of the sport’s great icons.
To play our part we bring you a small clip from the 1979 French Grand Prix featuring a fierce battle for track position between Villeneuve and Rene Arnoux. Villeneuve himself described it as, “My best memory of Grand Prix racing.”
They don’t race like this any more!
2 replies on “Honouring Gilles Villeneuve”
Make the F1 cars look like this and get rid of KERS and DRS and all the rest of the mad trickery. Wheel to wheel racing without the gimmicks.
[…] honoured the memory of the flamboyant legend by inviting his son, Jacques, to Fiorano to drive the same 312 T4 that his father drove to three Grand Prix wins in […]