Montoya and Villeneuve, two past race winners will be competing on the same racetrack both trying to restore some luster to their tarnished careers.
perhaps. he has had decent results on road courses in NASCAR (Nationwide). has generally done well in good equipment everywhere (Indy, F1, sports cars, NASCAR). but..... hasn't driven an open wheel car on an oval in almost 20 years. hasn't driven an open wheel car anywhere in almost 10 years. has missed at least 2 generations of Indycars. his learning curve will be very steep, and very unforgiving.
yeah, for sure. maybe someone can give Hornish a ride at Indy too. sucks to see him on the sidelines now.
Good to hear he'll be competing in the 500 but I would have preferred news on him landing a ride with Audi, Toyota or Porsche at Lemans.... One jewel to go.
Learning curve for the cars - definitely. Huge change from when he raced. I would think he adapts to the track fine, though.
I know Indycar has its share of haters on here but frankly I enjoy it. there are some great drivers and most of the races last year were very exciting. I attended four of the races last season and pretty much all went down to the wire. I enjoy F1 as well but let's face it, the last half of the season was not so exciting w/ Seb running away with every dang race. I believe this is the last year they'll be racing at TMS and from what I understand, there are some contract obligations that roll off after this year so we could see some significant changes in the years to come...hearing COTA could get on the schedule next season. I know they have a long way to go but I sincerely hope they can turn this thing around and get viewership/attendance up. they're making progress but still a lot of work to do. now if only the cars weren't so ugly...
LOL! You took the words right off my finger tips. The difference is, at least Villeneuve has actually raced and won at Indy before. BHW
Anyone know what Captain Canuck is up to these days? Glad Villeneuve is having another go at it. The more interesting returnee is JPM. Its gonna be fun.
agreed...will be interesting to see how he plays with his teammates. three great drivers on that team but I'm hoping it's WP's year.
Jacques Villeneuve has the reputation of having bad night vision. One year the Peugeot team was narrowly beaten by Audi at Le Mans after leading for most of the race. Post-race analysis showed that, compared to his team mates, JV had been loosing a handful of seconds every lap in the dark. The matter got worst when it started raining during the night . Villeneuve has never been asked to race in an endurance programme since.
Have you seen the new F1 cars? I hope that Villeneuve has a safe and good race. He is fun to watch WHEN racing.
Yep. He had the quickest qualifying time and won with the same team mates at the race before LeMans, the Spa 1000. During Lemans, Peugeot were beset with long pit stops for radiator issues and this was the primary reason why Peugeot lost the lead to Audi in 2008. Michel Barge admitted Peugeot opted to go with full dry settings and it made the 908 a handful to drive in the wet. Once JV pitted during the night and Kristensen passed the Peugeot, Minassian took the wheel under the same conditions JV experienced and lost approximately 5 seconds per lap to TK thereafter. In any case, the JV car finished second to Audi, ahead of two other factory Peugeots entered. JV had driven the Peugeot in only the two aforementioned races that year. Due to the Lemans loss, Barge was dropped by Peugeot and new boss Olivier Quesnel had a mandate to 'update' the team. The reason given for dropping JV (and Ricardo Zonta) was that both had prior commitments making them unavailable for most of the year to Peugeot.
The Indy 500 is just a joke any more. It's a 500 mile IROC race. In 10 more years it will be remote control. 50 years ago it meant something, even 30. It was a source of innovation and imagination. It's only fitting that they are bringing back old names to try and stimulate interest in the series. Even Auto week is taking a shot at it, " Who's next in this field? Sam Hornish Jr.? Gil de Ferran? Tom Sneva? "
agree. oddly, the last 500 that really meant something IMO was the 1995 race. winner? Jacques Villeneuve.
Jacques is a racer. If his mind and interest is there he will do well. Last F1 year, not he best car ,other interests prevailed.
+1 to both. It is a 500 mile IROC race without few star racers and a field of also-rans. I attended the 1995 Indy 500 and it was an exciting race. I think that Sam Hornish would be a worthy addition.
JV's Indy 500 win in 1995 was pretty spectacular - didn't he actually drive 505 miles to win that year? I seem to recall that due to safety cars or pit penalties he went a lap down on two occasions, he had to unlap his car twice to get back on the lead lap. [Edit] - just looked it up, and the Wikipedia entry for the 1995 Indy 500 says "he was penalized two laps for passing the pace car during a caution period in the early segment of the race. Through both strategy and luck, the young driver made up the 5-mile deficit for the win earning the race the "Indy 505" sobriquet."
F1 needed a villian in the mid-90's. Schumacher would have been the guy if Senna had lived, but after he died Schumi was almost unquestionably the best driver and every Ferrari fan cheered him on as the underdog. JV was in the best car and drove a consistent season, many disparage him (perhaps doubly so: he was no Michael nor Gilles). Before going to F1 he was very exciting in CART, I remember a race in Cleveland where he could pull off passes no one else could. You could argue Montoya also had success, but JV was the last, and perhaps only driver to emerge from Indycar in our generation and have an impact in Formula 1.
