Remembering Gilles - 25 Years On...

Forza355 · May 6, 2007

http://www.formula1.com/news/6037.html

http://www.formula1.com/gallery/

(To view the tribute photo gallery scroll down to the bottom of the page, click on 'Other' in the 'Special' photo category box and then use the arrows between the large photo and the thumbnails to slide until you find the 'Gilles Villenueve - A Tribute' tab.)

There are also a few articles about him up on the Autosport website, though you have to be registered in order to view them in full.

Edit: The latest issue of the magazine will also have a special tribute section dedicated to his career.

fluque · May 8, 2007

Three interesting notes from ITV-F1 (sorry long posts).

James Allen
http://www.itv-f1.com/Feature.aspx?Type=James_Allen&PO_ID=39144

"Growing up there were two drivers who really caught my imagination. One was Ayrton Senna, but before that was Gilles Villenueve.

I really loved Villeneuve; I cut pictures of him and the luscious Giacobazzi girls out of Grand Prix International magazine and plastered them all over my school folder.

He was an absolute hero to me. My Dad used to say, “He’ll either win the world championship, or kill himself” and sadly he was right about the second part.

I remember my blood going cold when he died on May 8th 1982. Grand Prix racing was so dramatic then; there was all the tension at Imola, the race before he died, where he had been betrayed by Didier Pironi, his team-mate. And then Zolder. A few months later Pironi had that horrific career-ending shunt at Hockenheim.

It was very intense for a 15-year-old, as I was then.

Juan Manuel Fangio once said: “There are those who keep out of mischief, and there are the adventurers. We racing drivers are adventurers; the more difficult something is, the greater the attraction that comes from it.”

For me Villenueve was the greatest of the adventurers. He was enormously fast and brave, but he had a unique spirit, which came across so clearly to all of those who watched him race. He also seemed so pure and unaffected in his outlook; he raced for racing’s sake.

I’m just finishing work on a biography of Michael Schumacher and it struck me that although the two men share the same otherworldly ability to drive a racing car, they were polar opposites in character, Schumacher being so calculating and scheming about every last detail.

Sadly racers today are encouraged to model themselves on Schumacher, not Villeneuve.

Lewis Hamilton has that great adventurer’s spirit – this is what we are all warming to now, and Fangio too would have loved him for it.

But can you imagine Gilles spending 1,000 hours in the McLaren simulator? This was a guy who didn’t even pay attention to how much fuel there was in his helicopter!

I remember at the 1981 British Grand Prix he spun at the Woodcote chicane and got tangled up with Alan Jones’ Williams. Gilles tried to drive his battered car back to the pits (one of his trademarks), but only got as far as Stowe, where he turned right and stopped the car at the bottom of what was then the runway. I was there, he climbed out and walked past me.

Then I noticed that the Ferrari badge on the nose of his car was hanging off. I reached out to take it. My fingers were inches from the badge, but suddenly, from my left a giant yellow sheet appeared and was thrown over the car and in an instant there were two or three yellow-shirted Ferrari mechanics, bundling the thing up. That would have been a treasured souvenir.

Last year I was in the loft at home when I came across a large (5ft by 3ft) blow-up photo of Villeneuve at Long Beach in 1981, mounted on hardboard.

I gave it to my oldest boy: “There you go, son, stick that up on your wall,” I said. “That’s Gilles Villeneuve – he was the most exciting racer who ever lived.”
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fluque · May 8, 2007

Mark Hughes
http://www.itv-f1.com/Feature.aspx?Type=General&PO_ID=39146

Gilles Villeneuve died 25 years ago today after crashing his Ferrari during qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix.

Hes remembered as a hugely talented but flawed racing driver which is very sad, because he was much more than that. Although he won only six grands prix, under different circumstances he could have rewritten the F1 record books.

In the fastest car of the 82 season, and demonstrably faster than his team-mate Didier Pironi, he was almost certainly going to win that years world championship.

Hed only lost the 79 title when operating as number two to Jody Scheckter through running out of fuel on the final lap of the Belgian GP following a magnificent drive through the field up to third after an unscheduled stop.

But he was almost certainly going to leave Ferrari at the end of 82, following his major fall-out with Pironi and his suspicions about the alliance between Pironi and team manager Marco Piccinini.

At this point if we consider what might have been, the story becomes even more tragic.

Had Villeneuve survived to accept Ron Dennis repeated offers to join McLaren for 83, he would have lined up there with Niki Lauda. With a normally-aspirated car against the turbos there would have been no titles that year. But he would have been in prime position for 84-85 and the world-beating McLaren-TAG Porsches. And with Villeneuve and Lauda on board, there would have been no room at McLaren for Alain Prost when he was sacked from Renault at the end of 83.

Under these circumstances its quite conceivable that Villeneuve would have gone on to be a triple world champion (at the very least) and that Prost would have spent his time in cars not worthy of him and eventually retired with only a handful of grand prix wins with Renault to his name, rather than four titles and 51 race victories.

Its all about perception. And perception never did catch up with Gilles.

How gifted was he? Theres a legend that he was 11s quicker than anyone in the wet at Watkins Glen 1979. Thats false. He was only 9.6s faster than team-mate Jody Scheckter, who said at the time he was very pleased with how hard hed been able to push, was certain hed be fastest and only afterwards, with utter disbelief, did he see Villeneuves times.

Then theres the matter of Monaco qualifying in 1981.

This was at a time when turbocharged F1 engines still suffered from poor throttle response and when normally-aspirated cars were still at a big advantage there. Villeneuves turbocharged Ferrari further disadvantaged him in being a horribly unresponsive, agricultural chassis. He put it on the front row mere hundredths slower than Nelson Piquets normally-aspirated (and underweight) Brabham BT49.

Villeneuves 81 team-mate was the exceptionally quick Pironi whod led this race comfortably one year earlier in a Ligier. He was three seconds slower than Villeneuve and back in 17th. That was about where the car belonged at Monaco. In the race Pironi drove well to finish fourth. But he was lapped by the winner Villeneuve.

One race later, at Jarama for the Spanish GP, Gilles withstood 66 laps of pressure from a queue of four faster cars on his gearbox. He made not one single error in a dog of a car that invited error, allowed not one chink of light in his defences.

One momentarily locked brake, one over-enthusiastic squeeze of the throttle as the tyres wore out and his lead would have been history. Yet it never happened. He won with as flawless and error-free a performance as has ever been seen under the most extreme pressure imaginable.

No rock ape could possibly have produced that drive. Drivers such as Prost, Alan Jones and Nelson Piquet all threw their cars off into retirement on what was a very slippery surface.

He followed up his 79 Watkins Glen virtuoso wet practice performance with as sublime and controlled a race as anything from the pantheon of Prost or Stewart. But that doesnt fit in with the easy preconceptions so its usually discarded.

So a reminder: In that race, after engaging the superior Williams FW07 of Alan Jones in a battle for the win, he was left with a big lead when Jones pit stop went wrong and a rear wheel fell off as he left the pit lane.

But then the Ferraris oil pressure began fading dramatically. So Villeneuve backed right off, coasted through the critical turns but maintained decent momentum, allowed lapped drivers to unlap themselves, just calmly monitored his advantage.

He did this for 40 laps and took the victory chequer with the pressure gauge reading almost zero. This is not the Villeneuve of common perception.

The moments of red zone frenzy that pepper Villeneuves career were not the indulgent, over-emotional excesses of a Jean Alesi. They were the hard-headed strivings of a warrior unwilling to accept the limitations of uncompetitive machinery.

The attitude they derived from, in combination with a truly freakish degree of talent, gave the impossible victories like Monaco and Spain 81. The critical thing is that, when in such situations, you saw not one hint of excess from him He knew what it took to win and knew the necessary approach varied according to circumstance.

The qualities some claim precluded ultimate success could under different circumstances have been the very cornerstones of staggering success.

Dont watch the numbers. They can lie to you.
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fluque · May 8, 2007

Peter Windsor
http://www.itv-f1.com/Feature.aspx?Type=Windsors_Wisdom&PO_ID=39120

Gilles was all about passion and enthusiasm. Youd knock on the door of his motorhome or hotel room at about 7pm on any Friday at any circuit, anywhere in the world, and hed beckon you in and youd sit and talk, and drink Cokes and eat apple pie.

Gilles loved racing and he particularly loved F1. What he hated were people he couldnt trust and/or people who put money or ego politics ahead of the simple equation of quick driver requires quick car.

How much more successful could he have been?

I think he matured a lot in 1980. At Monza, I remember Carlos Reutemann telling him over and over again that he should not give the championship to his team-mate, Jody Scheckter.

Gilles wouldnt have it. Jody was a great guy and it would be his, Gilles, turn in 1980, etc, etc. The 1980 Ferrari, of course, was a wombat and bang went Gilles championship.

He learned from that, though he learned about the uncertainty of it all. And then, at Imola, in 1982, when he was betrayed by those he trusted, he learned that from that point on he was on his own.

Had he not had his accident I guess he would have won the 1982 championship. And then, I think, he would have retired.

F1 was changing, Gilles eyesight was deteriorating and he had a new house and a family with which to spend time.

Oh yes: and there was that 65 Mustang that needed restoring...
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Senna1994 · May 8, 2007

Salut, Gilles!!!!!!!!

kizdan · May 8, 2007

Having been born and raised in Montreal, Gilles Villeneuve was a household name for me. I was too young to remember seeing him race live, however seeing footage of him is what hooked me on F1. To this day, there has not been a driver as exciting as him to watch.

He died doing what he loved, and he will be remembered forever.

Remy Zero · May 8, 2007

really amazing write-ups...

PSk · May 8, 2007

Senna1994 said: ↑

Salut, Gilles!!!!!!!!
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Amen.

Nurvolari and Gilles, cut from the same mold IMO.
Pete

Gilles27 · May 8, 2007

April, 1982. 25 years and 1 month ago.
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328 · May 9, 2007

Here's a clip of the Arnoux/Villeneuve battle in Dijon, with Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear) commenting about modern F1 drivers. Wonderfully opinionated as usual!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sDtn8QnpFg

ferrariartist · May 9, 2007

The UK Ferrari Club has a nice "Happenings Page" on their site.
They had a great "salut" to Gilles... interesting epilogue about the number of Enzo's house at the Factory...

http://www.ferrariownersclub.co.uk/happenings/2007/may/gilles_25/text.asp

GT

of2worlds · May 9, 2007

Great stories here, thanks.
CH

Martin308GTB · May 9, 2007

Hello from Germany,

great thread, which I don't want to hijack, but not to forget another great Ferrari driver. Lorenzo Bandini whose fatal accident in Monaco happened on 7th May 1967. These have been exactly 40 years on the day before yesterday.
He passed away three days later, on 10th.

Best Regards

Martin

fluque · May 9, 2007

ferrariartist said: ↑

... interesting epilogue about the number of Enzo's house at the Factory...
Click to expand...

The old man was not complacent with his drivers but Gilles was clearly one of his favorites.

classic308 · May 11, 2007

GV was my last real F1 hero....

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