Die Nummer 27 und die Formel 1

Ich hab grad ein schönen Artikel im Netz gefunden, über die Nummer 27, die sehr häufig mit Ferrari und G.Villeneuve/Alesi assoziiert wird.

At this time of year racing fans' after-dinner conversation turns to the future and, if you are above a certain age, increasingly to the past and this was how the subject of "Number 27" cropped up recently. To any Formula 1 fan of the ‘80’s and early ‘90’s, let alone a Tifoso, it causes an almost Pavlovian response because it meant at times superhuman efforts unrewarded by results, at other times results achieved which seemed impossible, sometimes tragedy but also triumph.

The records show that cars bearing the Number 27 made 378 Grand Prix starts between 1950 and 1995 and scored 25 wins. Drivers included such worthies as Jacky Ickx and Clay Regazzoni, both in Ferrari 312s, Ronnie Peterson (March 701), James Hunt (Hesketh) and Mario Andretti (Parnelli) as well as many less distinguished operators, but the story really begins with Alan Jones in 1978. Jones was a gritty and determined driver, who gave the Number its first win, carrying it until the end of 1980, when he won the World Championship and it passed onto Ferrari in part-exchange for Jody Scheckter’s No.1 from the previous year. This is where the legend really began, because in 1981 it was carried by the man with whom it will forever be associated – Gilles Villeneuve

Towards the end of his life Villeneuve said “I’ve got no intention of winning the World Championship by placing third and fourth all the time”. That philosophy of “win or bust” was eminently clear from the start of Gilles’ F1 career and was underlined by the heroic way he fought and conquered the most powerful (and initially intractable) engine in F1, the 1.5 litre V6 turbo installed in the agricultural 126C, in which he retired more often than he finished.

It now seems incredible that, although he drove in six seasons, 27 was his number for only 1½ of these, just 20 races in 1981 and the tragically truncated 1982. In that time he won 2 victories, Monaco and then Spain where it was said that “only Gilles Villeneuve could have passed Gilles Villeneuve”. The end came at Zolder in 1982, when he was killed trying to out-qualify his team-mate and bitter rival Didier Pironi. The tragedy occurred only 2 weeks after Pironi’s perceived treachery at Imola – where, for the benefit of younger readers, Pironi passed Villeneuve on the last lap in sight of the line when they were 1st and 2nd and had received a “Slow” signal (normally meaning “hold position”). Pironi later claimed there were no team orders, which team manager Marco Piccinini confirmed, further enraging Villeneuve.

A highly emotional team like the Scuderia Ferrari of the time could have been torn apart by the mixture of grief and guilt, but was held together by Villeneuve’s replacement, the debonair, charming and cosmopolitan Patrick Tambay whose driving and personal style was so different to Villeneuve. This alone won him devotees, as did his contribution to 1982 and 1983 Constructors’ Championships (Ferrari’s last until 1999). He also won two Grand Prix: a traumatic Germany the same year under the shadow of Pironi’s dreadful accident which ended his F1 career when the Championship was in sight. Tambay’s final victory for Ferrari was at Imola the following year, where he was cool under almost unbearable pressure. Incidentally, he drove 27 races for the team......

The Scuderia expressed their gratitude by replacing him by Michele Alboreto for 1984, a fighter whose famous victories for Tyrrell in the USA at Las Vegas and Detroit – the latter the final victory of the legendary DFV in 3 litre form (albeit in its second incarnation, the DFY). This man seemed suited to the culture of the Number and his place in the 27 story was cemented when he lay to rest the spectre of Zolder. The atmosphere there was not helped by a memorial to Villeneuve in the pitlane which was met with less than universal praise. His victory carrying Gilles’s number was fittingly in the final Grand Prix at the unloved circuit. For 1985, a long awaited championship seemed to be there for the taking until after 10 races with no finish lower than 3rd (albeit with 2 retirements) there came a 4th, a 13th and 4 straight retirements. Alboreto stayed with Ferrari for three more seasons, but never won again. His F1 career eventually petered out and sadly, he died testing an Audi sports car at Lausitzring in 2001.

And so to 1989; if Ferrari then had a reputation for plotting, infighting and producing sometimes difficult and occasionally impossible cars during periodic bouts of self-destruction - who better to join than a man who, in his own mind at least, had fought courageously against such things throughout his whole career? Yes, Upton-on-Severn’s finest was the next custodian of 27, and when Nigel Mansell won first time out in the 640 in Brazil, despite major reliability issues and practice woes which, in most commentators’ views ruled out a victory, Il Leone became a passionate favourite for the Tifosi. From then on, the 27 pattern was followed with either a podium or a retirement in each race, so “Our Nige” has earned his place in the legend.

In 1990, Alain Prost joined Ferrari, having won the World Championship at McLaren, and so 27 went to Ayrton Senna. There seems little point justifying the inclusion of the world’s most revered and charismatic driver in this list. As Louis Armstrong said, if you have to ask you’ll never understand.

So was Prost a ‘27’ driver? He carried the number in 1991, when No. 1 had gone straight back to Senna and McLaren, but he has little place here. He was one of the most successful drivers of all time, but how often did he make your heart leap into your mouth, or bring tears of pain or joy to your eyes? By contrast, the next man to carry the Number did all of these. Jean Alesi had both the flair and the faults to be part of our list, and like Alboreto he came from the perennial “best of an underfinanced job” Tyrrell where he drove the fantastic 019, which brought the high nose to F1. His initial impression was made in 28 and in 27 he endured (as did we) a long, frustrating drought with occasional flashes of genius.

It seems fitting that Alesi’s only F1 victory was the last for 27, in a Ferrari, in the 1995 Canadian GP, at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, which also seems likely to be the last-ever F1 victory for a Ferrari V12, because at the end of the season, Schuey arrived, bringing with him the No.1 from Benetton and with it the modern era to Ferrari. So 27 passed into the history books and with the F1 grid seemingly barely able to muster 20 cars next year, it seems unlikely that we will see it again, which is probably just as well, because it belongs to an era which is well and truly over.

Footnote by the Editor:

Those who have been fortunate enough to visit the Fiorano circuit may have noticed that Enzo Ferrari's house there is No.27. Maybe just a coincidence, but I wasn't sure that it had always had that number, but could find nothing on the subject. However David Seielstad provided photographic evidence which shows that the house was once No. 5. No-one seems to know when or why it was changed. Could it be the Old Man's personal and final tribute to Gilles, or was it just a romantic marketing ploy from someone at the factory?

Die Nummer scheint echt verflucht zu sein. Oft wurde sie von Fahrern wie Villeneuve getragen, die Seriensieger hätten sein müssen, jedoch vom Material eingebremst wurden und immer übers Limit gingen - Vielleicht sind genau deshalb Villeneuve und Alesi Legenden für die Tifosi.

Die Geschichte mit Enzos Haus finde ich auch Interessant. Weiß hier einer mehr dazu?

Man kann natürlich in jede St-Nr. was reininterpretieren .
Es gab 62 Fahrer in der WM Geschichte die mit der 27 gefahren sind .

Jones gewann 1980 die WM mit der 27 ,Senna fuhr sie 1990.
Villeneuve fuhr die 27 gerade mal 2 Jahre , Alboretto hatte sie 5 Saisons auf dem Auto , Alesi 4 Saisons .

wobei dennoch die 27 zuerst mit g. villeneuve assoziiert wird und g. villeneuve mit der 27 und das ging mir auch schon vor gut 15 jahren so.
der sohnemann hatte die gleiche nummer ja einst extra bekommen.

hätte in der berger alesi zeit bei ferrari berger die 27 bekommen, hätte ich das auch damals irgendwie komisch gefunden, denn die 27 passte zu alesi, was ja auch wieder nur eine assoziation villeneuve darstellt, denn einfach zu sagen die nummer passt zu dem und jene zu dem ist natürlich mumpitz.

Hm, irgentwas muss da dran sein. Wenn selbst Enzo Ferraris Haus die Nummer 27 hat

Übrigens, ich hab ein Video gefunden, zu dem San Marino GP im Jahre 82, wo Pironi Villeneuve den Sieg angeblich gestohlen hat. Oft wird darüber diskutiert, wenn der Name von einem der beiden fällt, aber das Video hab ich erst vor kurzem gesehen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua70zL52pt0

Schöner Kampf um den Sieg, vorallem als noch der Renault mitfuhr. Schade das die Formel 1 heutzutage nicht mehr so ist. Das Jahr war für Ferrari einfach verflucht, man hatte den Titel sogut wie sicher und hätte in den folgenden Jahren mit der Fahrerpaarung viel erreichen können (und uns wär dann das Märchen vom Ferrari Retter Schummel erspart gewesen).

Nur mal kurz reingeguckt, aber: Fährt einer mit Frontflügel, der andere ohne?

Das es von GP zu GP wechselte wusste ich, aber von TK zu TK

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Jo, aber das waren doch Ground Effekt Autos, da wird dies warscheinlich kein großen Unterschied gemacht haben. Vorallem bei einem flachen Frontflügel?

Vielleicht hatte Pironi auch noch nicht die neuesten Entwickelungen am Auto, neue Teile sind warscheinlich zuerst auf Villeneuves Auto montiert worden.

Edit:
Wenn die 2014er Turbos genauso klingen, können sie von mir aus kommen. Aber höchstwarscheinlich klingen sie genauso langweilig wie ein Golf oder etwas in der Art.

Heute ist der 30. Todestag von Gilles Villeneuve. Ihm zu ehren wollte ich hier eine Zusammenfassung von wichtigsten Infos, Zitaten und Bildern über ihn machen, die ich ihm netz finden konnte.

The following article has been published with kind permission of “Gazzetta dello Sport”

Who was Gilles Villeneuve? A madman you might say at first, taking him at face value. A champion who came out of nowhere, according to others. Or maybe a miracle in human form who, when all was said and done, decided to leave, aware he was becoming a legendary figure. In all probability, Villenueve was all three of these things, with the awareness that he could not live an ordinary life and therefore put up with the consequences. It was as if every step, every gesture, every exuberance was a chapter in a book, the book that was his life. In this respect, he was similar to another champion he could never have known, but whom he loved, thanks to the tales told him by Ferrari: Tazio Nuvolari. Different backgrounds, but almost identical destinies. Tazio came from a well to do Mantua family and he was very wealthy even before he started racing, but from that point on, he set about doing a thorough job of building the legend, with a series of feats that pushed the boundaries of what is possible.

Villeneuve did the same, almost as though there was a parallel consciousness guiding his decisions. Let’s talk about him being mad. How else can one describe someone who, as a snowmobile racer, lived in a metal motorhome with his wife and children, with the water turning to ice in the pipes during the terrible Canadian winters? He would go out at night in just a T-shirt, to fix the problem, heating the pipes with a welding torch. And that’s just one of the terrifying tales told me back then by his wife Joann. She was his angel, his private secretary, manager, cook, mother to his children, his rock during the worst times, the woman with whom he always found solace. Indeed, it is a fact that, at one point, Gilles lost his head over another woman, but it did not lead to a break up. Maybe time would heal everything and so it turned out. It took time and it was slow, difficult and painful for Joann, Jacques and Melanie.

Villeneuve’s life was like an action movie, full of spectacular, exciting, diabolical scenarios. There were racing incidents that could not be repeated today, given that now, the slightest error on track is analysed by inflexible stewards who reason with the mentality of intransigent policemen whose job it is to enforce the rules of the road. For the duel with Arnoux at Dijon, Gilles would have been banned for a year. For his three-wheeled lap of Zandvoort or the one with the wing hanging off at Montreal, he would have been disqualified for a few months. And since the governing body can also call on the pretext of intervening in matters of driver behaviour outside the circuits, what sort of judgement would have been passed on Villeneuve when he used a helicopter to buzz Scheckter’s red Ferrari on the motorway, aiming nose down like a guided missile, missing the car by just a few centimetres?

A madman, exactly. Only a madman could have contemplated entering the sophisticated world of Formula 1, where everyone was already flying First Class or in private planes, turning up with a mobile home behind a truck, to live day and night in the garage, woken by the strident cries of the rebuilt engines being fired up just a few hours before going out on track. Him, the family and an Alsatian dog. Just crazy. That was one Villeneuve. But, as soon as qualifying for a grand prix was over, he would be off to play with toy cars with his kids, while his wife Joann, did the cooking for the Ferrari mechanics. It was another time, a time that no longer exists, that stopped at that moment in the life of Gilles the comet. It was in his motorhome that the hero of the impossible came to life, ready to rouse the crowds. It was within these four walls of steel that the warrior put on his armour and kissed his children before stepping into the arena. This is where the deeds of a driver who feared no one began. He had the courage to say of Lauda, “I can take half a second a lap off him on any track in any car.” He harboured an almost religious respect for Ronnie Peterson, but commented, “he is my idol, but if I want I can brake twenty metres later than him into every corner…” These things were said unconsciously rather than with arrogance, backed up by the fact that his level of car control has never been seen since in F1.

Cleary this did not find favour with his colleagues. He probably only had three real friends: Patrick Tambay, Jody Scheckter and, only in some ways, Bruno Giacomelli. It was Tambay who, having met him in Can-Am races in Canada, offered him hospitality and helped him settle in when Gilles moved to the South of France when he joined Ferrari. Scheckter, in his early days in F1 was as mad as he was, a true brother and a tough and true team-mate. Giacomelli was the last to share with Villeneuve the unreal outings in Tullio Abate’s powerboats on the Cote d’Azur, with the boat coming back to harbour requiring scrapping rather than repair, so bad was the damage. But the others did not like Gilles and how could they? For the Italian drivers, and at that time there were plenty of good ones, he snatched their chance of a Ferrari drive. As for the others, Gilles always seemed to be selfish, heading straight down his chosen path, not giving a damn if he put the lives of others at risk. And it has to be said there were sound reasons why they were not completely wrong. However, the appeal Villeneuve had for the general public has remained without equal. Because at a time when the economy was going well and there were no stock market crashes, no workers on a minimum wage, or worries of any kind, he shattered this cosy feeling of wellbeing, by going to the very edge in showing that there could still be a life consisting of self-made risks and improvisation, that, in short, life could be a gamble. With him around, every race was a new film with a fresh script. Villeneuve who was the very first to dominate with the Ferrari turbo at Monaco, Villeneuve who held off a wild pack of champions at Jarama, Villeneuve pulling off impossible overtaking moves everywhere. He was a show within the show. Then there was Villeneuve challenging an F104 jet at Istana airport, Villeneuve who could cut the mustard on water too, winning a speedboat race at Cernobbio, Villeneuve who spun his Ferrari 328 in a tunnel on the Autostrada dei Fiori, overtaking a truck, just to frighten Scheckter who was alongside him. Or Villeneuve who, in a completely insane challenge on the streets of Sao Paolo on the morning of the Grand Prix, takes off over the pavement in a green Fiat 850, lands in the middle of a crossroad and, with a kamikaze move, avoids the cars coming toward him from all sides to emerge “victorious,” leaving the man who had challenged him, the journalist, Enrico Benzing, a competent driver but not as uninhibited as the Canadian, completely dumbfounded.

In every way, Gilles lived his life to the extreme. Even in the way he secretly tried to become an accomplished trumpet player, taking the instrument everywhere with him. One evening, in a restaurant in Zeltweg, he pulled it out of a case to delight Forghieri, Regazzoni, the writer and a colleague, Nestore Morosini. In moments like these, he was adorable, even if usually, he was reasonably cold, closed into his own little world, in which at one point entered an element unknown to him, namely money, which required setting up a financial company in Lichenstein for investments.

When he died, everyone had already been resigned to it for a while. There was something in the air that meant it could have happened at any moment. Few people went to say their final farewell at the hospital in Lovanio and you could count the drivers on the fingers of one hand. And so, at precisely the moment when this life ended and mutated into a legend, in the pits there was an icy indifference. It was as though the paddock had freed itself from a troublesome element that was hard to swallow. No one realised that without Villeneuve, F1 would be a different thing altogether.

Pino Allievi

GILLES VILLENEUVE - The Greatest

Various driver quotes and excerpts from book's.
Well worth a read if you liked Gilles.




Nigel Roebuck's wonderful Grand Prix Greats (1986), Patrick Stephens Ltd, Wellingborough

Qualifying in the rain at the 1979 US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, New York

A friend of mine in America sent me a cassette a while ago. On it is the sound of a lone racing car, unmistakably a Ferrari flat-12, and its clearly audible all the way round the lap. There is a lot of wheelspin - you can hear the revs abruptly scream out of every turn - and then the volume builds until the car swishes by in a welter of spray. He taped it during the first afternoon of practice at Watkins Glen in 1979, when conditions were as bad as I have ever seen at a race circuit. In places the track was flooded, and only eight drivers ventured out. One of those was Scheckter, who was fastest behind team mate Villeneuve. Eleven seconds behind ...The tape is of course Gilles, and it revived memories of a day when we forgot the wintry rain until he came in, the Ferrari breathless and steaming. In the pits the other drivers, aghast, had giggled nervously every time he skittered by at 160 mph. "Why do we bother? He's different from the rest of us," Jacques Laffite said. "On another level ..."
"I scared myself rigid that day", Jody remembered. "I thought I had to be quickest. Then I saw Gilles's time and - I still don't really understand how it was possible. Eleven seconds !" "Motor racing was a romantic thing for him, you see." Scheckter went on. "We were close friends, doing the same job for the same team, but we had completely opposite attitudes to it. My preoccupation was keeping myself alive, but Gilles had to be the fastest on every lap - even in testing. He was the fastest racing driver the world has ever seen. If he could come back and live his life again, I think he would do exactly the same - and with the same love."

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1981 French Grand Prix Qualifying at Dijon:

During practice at Dijon in 1981, Gilles crashed at the Courbe de Pouas, an undulating, flat-in-fourth right hander, with no run-off worth mentioning. During the lunch break I found him dabbing a cut on his jaw: "Bloody catch pole cracked my helmet and broke the visor ..."
"You overdid it ?" I asked. "Just ran out of road?" "No, no," he grinned. "I ran out of lock! "The car is really bad through there - an adventure every time. Go and have a look this afternoon and you'll see what I mean." I did. I watched the Cosworth- engined Williams and Brabhams droning through on their rails, and waited. At its clipping point, at the top of a rise, the Ferrari was already sideways, its driver winding on opposite lock. As it came past me, plunging downhill now, the tail stayed out of line, further and further, and still Gilles had his foot hard down. As he reached the bottom of the dip, I knew the position was hopeless, for now it was virtually broadside, full lock on, Villeneuve's head pointing up the road, out of the side of the cockpit.
Somehow, though, the Ferrari did not spin, finally snapping back into line as it grazed the catch fencing, then rocketing away up the hill. For more
than a hundred yards, I swear it, the car was sideways at 130 mph. "That's genius," said David Hobbs, watching with me. "Are you seriously telling me he's won two Grand Prix in that?"

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from "Villeneuve: The Life of a Legendary
Racing Driver", Gerald Donaldson (1989),
Motor Racing Publications, Croydon, UK

1980 Italian Grand Prix:
....on the fifth lap ....Gilles, travelling at an estimated 180 mph, flew off at Tosa and pitched into the cement wall at unabated speed. The enormous impact destroyed the left side of the Ferrari,scattering wreckage high into the air.The front wheel struck Gilles a heavy blow on the helmet - but the accident was not yet over. The momentum shot the remains of the car back across the grass and onto the circuit in front of the oncoming traffic,where it then spun to a smoking halt. Cars took frantic evasive action and all came through unscathed except Giacomelli's Alfa, which ran over a piece of Ferrari suspension and stopped with a punctured tyre. Gilles sat motionless for several agonising moments before he raised his arms and began waving them. Finally, after about thirty seconds, the very worried Tosa crowd gave a mighty cheer of approval as Gilles unstrapped his harness, climbed out and trotted away, though somewhat unsteadily. He was taken to the track clinic and examined, then released to go and lie down in his camper. He complained of being sore all over and had a sever headache and the next day he went to hospital in Bologna for a brain scan. No damage was discovered, though he wasn't allowed to fly his helecopter for twenty-four hours, and within a few days he was completely recovered.An exploding right rear tyre had caused the accident and Gilles was his usual phlegmatic self in recalling what ollowed. "I knew what had happened even before the car had begun to spin., because I heard the thumping of the flat tyre. I knew where I was, how close the wall was and everything, and I thought, `This one is going to hurt.' Everything went black when I hit the wall and I could not see for maybe thirty seconds. I could hear the cars going by and I thought I was thrown in the middle of them. I was afraid someone would hit me and thats why I raised my arms, so they could see me."

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Gilles quote:

"I don't have any fear of a crash. No fear of that. Of course, on a fifth gear corner with a fence outside, I don't want to crash. I'm not crazy. But
if its near the end of practice, and your trying for pole position maybe, I guess you can squeeze the fear ..."

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Jacques Laffite quote:

"I know that no human being can do a miracle. Nobody commands magical properties, but Gilles made you wonder. He was that quick."

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Frank Williams quote:

"I was very proud of Alan that day. We had the best car at the time, without a doubt, and the only driver on the track we feared was that little French Canadian ..."

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Niki Lauda quote:

"Gilles was the perfect racing driver who knew where to take which advantage where ..." "Villeneuve had the best talent of all of us. Whatever car that you put him in he would have been quick."

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Didier Pironi quote:

"When I joined Ferrari the whole team was so devoted to Gilles. I mean he was not just the top driver, he was much more than that. He had a small family there. ... he made me fit right in and I felt at home right away
overnight and Gilles made no distinctions either ...I was expecting to be put in my place, I was not number one. I was number two. He treated me like an equal all the way."

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Jackie Stewart quote:

"Oh, I think he's superb, and I believe he'll get better and better. At the moment he still makes mistakes, misses the odd apex, gets up on a curb, uses a little too much road on the way out sometimes, but i'm being hypercritical here. His level of natural talent is phenomenal - there's real genius in his car control."

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Gilles quote:

"I love motor racing. To me it's a sport, not a technical exercise. My deal Formula One car would be something like a McLaren M23 with a big normally aspirated engine, 800 hp, 21 inch rear tyres. A lot of people say we
should have narrower tires, but I don't agree because you need big tyres to slow you down when you spin. And you need a lot of horsepower to unstick big tyres, to make the cars slide. That would be a bloody fantastic spectacle, I can tell you. We would take corners one gear lower than we do now, and get the cars sideways. You know, people still rave about Ronnie Peterson in a Lotus 72, and I understand that. I agree with them.
That's the kind of entertainment I want to give the crowds. Smoke the tyres ! Yeah ! I [care about the fans], because I used to be one of them ! I believe the crowd is really losing out at the moment, and that's
bad."

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Walter Wolf quote:

"[Gilles] is a super, super, super talented driver with the ability which happen very seldom. A man gets so much ability, so much feeling for a car".

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Enzo Ferrari Quote:

" ...and when they presented me with this tiny Canadian, this miniscule bundle of nerves, I instantly recognized in him the physique of the great Nuvolari and I said to myself, `let's give him a try."

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Rene Arnoux Quote:

"It was terrible when Gilles died. I cried that day and the next one, too, even though I had to race ...and I remember the feeling that we were all starting equal, from now on. Villeneuve was gone. We all knew he had a
talent beyond our reach."

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Alain Prost Quote:

" ...with me and my competitors it's battle for pole position as that's important but with Gilles you will see a battle for everything ...[including] 10th place ..."
"He made the fastest start of anybody here. I thought he must know a trick ...all season he had quicker starts, no one could compare"

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Juan Manuel Fangio Quote:

"He will remain as a member of the family of the truly great drivers in auto racing history. Mr Enzo Ferrari, who is an authority on these matters, has compared Villeneuve to Tazio Nuvolari. Nuvolari in my younger days was the great idol. All drivers wanted to equal the great Nuvolari. They struggled to match but could only imitate him. To be compared to Nuvolari is to receive the highest praise. Villeneuve did not race to finish, he did not race for points. He raced to win. Although small in stature he was a giant."

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Keke Rosberg Quote:

"To Gilles, racing truly was a sport, which is why he would never chop you. Something like that he'd look on with contempt. You didn't have to be a good driver to do that, let alone a great one. Anyone could do that.
Gilles was the hardest ******* I ever raced against, but completely fair. If you'd beaten him to a corner, he accepted it and gave you room. Then he'd be right back at you at the next one! Sure, he took unbelievable risks - but only with himself - and that's why I get ****ed off now when people compare Senna with him. Gilles was a giant of a driver, yes, but he was also a great man."

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Gilles Quote:
On Snowmobiling

"Every winter you would reckon on three or four big spills - and I'm talking bout being thrown onto 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 !"

Mark Hughes, Autosport F1 reporter here. I've been following the Gilles Villeneuve thread and read your comments with interest. I’m reluctant to join the forum discussion because it rightly belongs to readers, not journalists. But while fully respecting the views of everyone on here, on Gilles there's one particular bit that actually I thought I could supply you with a bit more detail on, if you're interested. The bit where cheapracer says:

“No, the way you abuse your extra hp does it. There's not a sensible person alive who would agree Gilles had car sensitivity.”

I would argue that actually the common perception of Gilles lacking sensitivity is a myth, however destructive he may have been. His tyre sensitivity was amazingly good - as I believe I can show you with both the history books and the recollections of those I've interviewed over the years. I happen to have all this stuff handy because I've just been writing features for the forthcoming 30th anniversary of his death.

Some hard facts first:

Montreal 1978. He chose the 143 compound Michelin, significantly softer than the 135 chosen by Reutemann and the Renaults. Michelin advised they did not think it could do a race distance. He proved them wrong and won the race.

Long Beach 1979. He made the exact same choice of 143 compound. Again his team mate (Scheckter) and the other Michelin runners went for the harder compound. Michelin again said they thought it was marginal - he again proved them wrong and won the race.

In 1980, the T5 was such a dog of a car often it could not make its tyres do a full distance. The Michelins had developed to work on the ground effect Renault by now. Neither Scheckter nor Villeneuve could make them last but Villeneuve almost always made them last longer than Scheckter - whilst invariably being well ahead of him. Here are the numbers from that year at the races where they had to stop:

Brazil. GV stopped L8. Scheckter L9. (the exception that proves the rule!)
Long Beach. Scheckter L4. Villeneuve lap 39 (though this was because Scheckter had flat spotted)
Monaco. Scheckter lap 13. Villeneuve lap 21.
France. Scheckter lap 11. Villeneuve lap 21.
Germany. Villeneuve lap 13. Scheckter lap 17 (another one!)
Austria. Scheckter lap 8. Villeneuve lap 20.
Holland. Scheckter lap 10. Villeneuve lap 17.

Miss out the anomalous one where Scheckter has flat spotted and on average Gilles was making those tyres last about 5 laps longer than Scheckter.

Now here's some quotes I got from various people about this particular point (Villeneuve's tyre usage).

Pierre Dupasquier (Michelin): "Yes, he was a little crazy. But I tell you, he was not hard on the tyre! He had fantastic feel and sensitivity. I could not believe it at first, but he was giving us really good direction from when we first started testing with Ferrari, much better than we were getting with Renault. Of the two Ferrari drivers at that time, Reutemann was very sensitive too, but Gilles could actually make them last longer. At Montreal we told him no way were those tyres going to last - but they did. He was like a magician with tyres! I know people dont realise this because the image is of him driving with three wheels and locking up fighting Arnoux, but those instances were not about making the tyres last. When he again made the choice of the soft tyre for Long beach in '79 I was again concerned, but by this time I had more faith in him because of what he had done in Montreal - and also what he had done one race before Long Beach at Kyalami. If you remember, there he came from half a minute back to catch Scheckter, made Jody work his tyres too hard and then just cruised past."

Scheckter: "He loved the image he had at Ferrari as the daredevil. But it was just for show. I used to ride with him from Nice and all the way there he would drive perfectly normal but as soon as he got near the factory and people were recognising him, he'd be wheelspinning and sliding and driving like a crazy man. It was just show. He was actually a very sensitive driver, he seemed to have a better feel for tyres than I did, could seem to make them last better even when he was going faster. That wasn't really an issue for me in '79, but it certainly was in '80."

Bruno Giacomelli: "He was not only fantastically quick. He had everything. He knew a lot of the technical side - in fact, he was a connoisseur of that. He knew exactly what the car was doing and he could talk about it very well. He was a very sensitive driver actually. He was certainly the greatest driver I ever saw - a guy that was going to win many, many world championships. When he first arrived in F1 his driving style was not really suitable for F1. He was still quick but the style made him have accidents too. But he learned and though he remained spectacular, he became smooth as well. People get the two confused. You can still be super-smooth but be right on the limits, using all the track and more. People saw him pushing like hell because his cars weren't competitive in 1980 and '81 - up on the grass, crazy things - but I tell you, he was smooth in the way that he used the car, in the inputs he made into it. You could see that just following him. He had one of the smoothest styles of all of us."

There's more, but I've probably bored you enough. I, like some of you, watched every race Gilles did live. For me, he was head and shoulders above the others - and quite a few (but not all) of his peers agreed. Laffite, Lauda, Arnoux, Prost, Tambay all are on record as saying he was the best of them all.

Anyway,
Best wishes
Mark

Es war vor meiner Geburt, aber haette ich ihn mal erlebt, waere er neben SEA (Ayrton Senna) & VET wohl einer meiner ganz dicken Lieblingspiloten. In dem Sinne, R.I.F. , Herr Villeneuve...

MESSIas10 hat geschrieben:

Heute ist der 30. Todestag von Gilles Villeneuve. Ihm zu ehren wollte ich hier eine Zusammenfassung von wichtigsten Infos, Zitaten und Bildern über ihn machen, die ich ihm netz finden konnte.

The following article has been published with kind permission of “Gazzetta dello Sport”

Who was Gilles Villeneuve? A madman you might say at first, taking him at face value. A champion who came out of nowhere, according to others. Or maybe a miracle in human form who, when all was said and done, decided to leave, aware he was becoming a legendary figure. In all probability, Villenueve was all three of these things, with the awareness that he could not live an ordinary life and therefore put up with the consequences. It was as if every step, every gesture, every exuberance was a chapter in a book, the book that was his life. In this respect, he was similar to another champion he could never have known, but whom he loved, thanks to the tales told him by Ferrari: Tazio Nuvolari. Different backgrounds, but almost identical destinies. Tazio came from a well to do Mantua family and he was very wealthy even before he started racing, but from that point on, he set about doing a thorough job of building the legend, with a series of feats that pushed the boundaries of what is possible.

Villeneuve did the same, almost as though there was a parallel consciousness guiding his decisions. Let’s talk about him being mad. How else can one describe someone who, as a snowmobile racer, lived in a metal motorhome with his wife and children, with the water turning to ice in the pipes during the terrible Canadian winters? He would go out at night in just a T-shirt, to fix the problem, heating the pipes with a welding torch. And that’s just one of the terrifying tales told me back then by his wife Joann. She was his angel, his private secretary, manager, cook, mother to his children, his rock during the worst times, the woman with whom he always found solace. Indeed, it is a fact that, at one point, Gilles lost his head over another woman, but it did not lead to a break up. Maybe time would heal everything and so it turned out. It took time and it was slow, difficult and painful for Joann, Jacques and Melanie.

Villeneuve’s life was like an action movie, full of spectacular, exciting, diabolical scenarios. There were racing incidents that could not be repeated today, given that now, the slightest error on track is analysed by inflexible stewards who reason with the mentality of intransigent policemen whose job it is to enforce the rules of the road. For the duel with Arnoux at Dijon, Gilles would have been banned for a year. For his three-wheeled lap of Zandvoort or the one with the wing hanging off at Montreal, he would have been disqualified for a few months. And since the governing body can also call on the pretext of intervening in matters of driver behaviour outside the circuits, what sort of judgement would have been passed on Villeneuve when he used a helicopter to buzz Scheckter’s red Ferrari on the motorway, aiming nose down like a guided missile, missing the car by just a few centimetres?

A madman, exactly. Only a madman could have contemplated entering the sophisticated world of Formula 1, where everyone was already flying First Class or in private planes, turning up with a mobile home behind a truck, to live day and night in the garage, woken by the strident cries of the rebuilt engines being fired up just a few hours before going out on track. Him, the family and an Alsatian dog. Just crazy. That was one Villeneuve. But, as soon as qualifying for a grand prix was over, he would be off to play with toy cars with his kids, while his wife Joann, did the cooking for the Ferrari mechanics. It was another time, a time that no longer exists, that stopped at that moment in the life of Gilles the comet. It was in his motorhome that the hero of the impossible came to life, ready to rouse the crowds. It was within these four walls of steel that the warrior put on his armour and kissed his children before stepping into the arena. This is where the deeds of a driver who feared no one began. He had the courage to say of Lauda, “I can take half a second a lap off him on any track in any car.” He harboured an almost religious respect for Ronnie Peterson, but commented, “he is my idol, but if I want I can brake twenty metres later than him into every corner…” These things were said unconsciously rather than with arrogance, backed up by the fact that his level of car control has never been seen since in F1.

Cleary this did not find favour with his colleagues. He probably only had three real friends: Patrick Tambay, Jody Scheckter and, only in some ways, Bruno Giacomelli. It was Tambay who, having met him in Can-Am races in Canada, offered him hospitality and helped him settle in when Gilles moved to the South of France when he joined Ferrari. Scheckter, in his early days in F1 was as mad as he was, a true brother and a tough and true team-mate. Giacomelli was the last to share with Villeneuve the unreal outings in Tullio Abate’s powerboats on the Cote d’Azur, with the boat coming back to harbour requiring scrapping rather than repair, so bad was the damage. But the others did not like Gilles and how could they? For the Italian drivers, and at that time there were plenty of good ones, he snatched their chance of a Ferrari drive. As for the others, Gilles always seemed to be selfish, heading straight down his chosen path, not giving a damn if he put the lives of others at risk. And it has to be said there were sound reasons why they were not completely wrong. However, the appeal Villeneuve had for the general public has remained without equal. Because at a time when the economy was going well and there were no stock market crashes, no workers on a minimum wage, or worries of any kind, he shattered this cosy feeling of wellbeing, by going to the very edge in showing that there could still be a life consisting of self-made risks and improvisation, that, in short, life could be a gamble. With him around, every race was a new film with a fresh script. Villeneuve who was the very first to dominate with the Ferrari turbo at Monaco, Villeneuve who held off a wild pack of champions at Jarama, Villeneuve pulling off impossible overtaking moves everywhere. He was a show within the show. Then there was Villeneuve challenging an F104 jet at Istana airport, Villeneuve who could cut the mustard on water too, winning a speedboat race at Cernobbio, Villeneuve who spun his Ferrari 328 in a tunnel on the Autostrada dei Fiori, overtaking a truck, just to frighten Scheckter who was alongside him. Or Villeneuve who, in a completely insane challenge on the streets of Sao Paolo on the morning of the Grand Prix, takes off over the pavement in a green Fiat 850, lands in the middle of a crossroad and, with a kamikaze move, avoids the cars coming toward him from all sides to emerge “victorious,” leaving the man who had challenged him, the journalist, Enrico Benzing, a competent driver but not as uninhibited as the Canadian, completely dumbfounded.

In every way, Gilles lived his life to the extreme. Even in the way he secretly tried to become an accomplished trumpet player, taking the instrument everywhere with him. One evening, in a restaurant in Zeltweg, he pulled it out of a case to delight Forghieri, Regazzoni, the writer and a colleague, Nestore Morosini. In moments like these, he was adorable, even if usually, he was reasonably cold, closed into his own little world, in which at one point entered an element unknown to him, namely money, which required setting up a financial company in Lichenstein for investments.

When he died, everyone had already been resigned to it for a while. There was something in the air that meant it could have happened at any moment. Few people went to say their final farewell at the hospital in Lovanio and you could count the drivers on the fingers of one hand. And so, at precisely the moment when this life ended and mutated into a legend, in the pits there was an icy indifference. It was as though the paddock had freed itself from a troublesome element that was hard to swallow. No one realised that without Villeneuve, F1 would be a different thing altogether.

Pino Allievi

GILLES VILLENEUVE - The Greatest

Various driver quotes and excerpts from book's.
Well worth a read if you liked Gilles.




Nigel Roebuck's wonderful Grand Prix Greats (1986), Patrick Stephens Ltd, Wellingborough

Qualifying in the rain at the 1979 US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, New York

A friend of mine in America sent me a cassette a while ago. On it is the sound of a lone racing car, unmistakably a Ferrari flat-12, and its clearly audible all the way round the lap. There is a lot of wheelspin - you can hear the revs abruptly scream out of every turn - and then the volume builds until the car swishes by in a welter of spray. He taped it during the first afternoon of practice at Watkins Glen in 1979, when conditions were as bad as I have ever seen at a race circuit. In places the track was flooded, and only eight drivers ventured out. One of those was Scheckter, who was fastest behind team mate Villeneuve. Eleven seconds behind ...The tape is of course Gilles, and it revived memories of a day when we forgot the wintry rain until he came in, the Ferrari breathless and steaming. In the pits the other drivers, aghast, had giggled nervously every time he skittered by at 160 mph. "Why do we bother? He's different from the rest of us," Jacques Laffite said. "On another level ..."
"I scared myself rigid that day", Jody remembered. "I thought I had to be quickest. Then I saw Gilles's time and - I still don't really understand how it was possible. Eleven seconds !" "Motor racing was a romantic thing for him, you see." Scheckter went on. "We were close friends, doing the same job for the same team, but we had completely opposite attitudes to it. My preoccupation was keeping myself alive, but Gilles had to be the fastest on every lap - even in testing. He was the fastest racing driver the world has ever seen. If he could come back and live his life again, I think he would do exactly the same - and with the same love."

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1981 French Grand Prix Qualifying at Dijon:

During practice at Dijon in 1981, Gilles crashed at the Courbe de Pouas, an undulating, flat-in-fourth right hander, with no run-off worth mentioning. During the lunch break I found him dabbing a cut on his jaw: "Bloody catch pole cracked my helmet and broke the visor ..."
"You overdid it ?" I asked. "Just ran out of road?" "No, no," he grinned. "I ran out of lock! "The car is really bad through there - an adventure every time. Go and have a look this afternoon and you'll see what I mean." I did. I watched the Cosworth- engined Williams and Brabhams droning through on their rails, and waited. At its clipping point, at the top of a rise, the Ferrari was already sideways, its driver winding on opposite lock. As it came past me, plunging downhill now, the tail stayed out of line, further and further, and still Gilles had his foot hard down. As he reached the bottom of the dip, I knew the position was hopeless, for now it was virtually broadside, full lock on, Villeneuve's head pointing up the road, out of the side of the cockpit.
Somehow, though, the Ferrari did not spin, finally snapping back into line as it grazed the catch fencing, then rocketing away up the hill. For more
than a hundred yards, I swear it, the car was sideways at 130 mph. "That's genius," said David Hobbs, watching with me. "Are you seriously telling me he's won two Grand Prix in that?"

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from "Villeneuve: The Life of a Legendary
Racing Driver", Gerald Donaldson (1989),
Motor Racing Publications, Croydon, UK

1980 Italian Grand Prix:
....on the fifth lap ....Gilles, travelling at an estimated 180 mph, flew off at Tosa and pitched into the cement wall at unabated speed. The enormous impact destroyed the left side of the Ferrari,scattering wreckage high into the air.The front wheel struck Gilles a heavy blow on the helmet - but the accident was not yet over. The momentum shot the remains of the car back across the grass and onto the circuit in front of the oncoming traffic,where it then spun to a smoking halt. Cars took frantic evasive action and all came through unscathed except Giacomelli's Alfa, which ran over a piece of Ferrari suspension and stopped with a punctured tyre. Gilles sat motionless for several agonising moments before he raised his arms and began waving them. Finally, after about thirty seconds, the very worried Tosa crowd gave a mighty cheer of approval as Gilles unstrapped his harness, climbed out and trotted away, though somewhat unsteadily. He was taken to the track clinic and examined, then released to go and lie down in his camper. He complained of being sore all over and had a sever headache and the next day he went to hospital in Bologna for a brain scan. No damage was discovered, though he wasn't allowed to fly his helecopter for twenty-four hours, and within a few days he was completely recovered.An exploding right rear tyre had caused the accident and Gilles was his usual phlegmatic self in recalling what ollowed. "I knew what had happened even before the car had begun to spin., because I heard the thumping of the flat tyre. I knew where I was, how close the wall was and everything, and I thought, `This one is going to hurt.' Everything went black when I hit the wall and I could not see for maybe thirty seconds. I could hear the cars going by and I thought I was thrown in the middle of them. I was afraid someone would hit me and thats why I raised my arms, so they could see me."

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Gilles quote:

"I don't have any fear of a crash. No fear of that. Of course, on a fifth gear corner with a fence outside, I don't want to crash. I'm not crazy. But
if its near the end of practice, and your trying for pole position maybe, I guess you can squeeze the fear ..."

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Jacques Laffite quote:

"I know that no human being can do a miracle. Nobody commands magical properties, but Gilles made you wonder. He was that quick."

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Frank Williams quote:

"I was very proud of Alan that day. We had the best car at the time, without a doubt, and the only driver on the track we feared was that little French Canadian ..."

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Niki Lauda quote:

"Gilles was the perfect racing driver who knew where to take which advantage where ..." "Villeneuve had the best talent of all of us. Whatever car that you put him in he would have been quick."

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Didier Pironi quote:

"When I joined Ferrari the whole team was so devoted to Gilles. I mean he was not just the top driver, he was much more than that. He had a small family there. ... he made me fit right in and I felt at home right away
overnight and Gilles made no distinctions either ...I was expecting to be put in my place, I was not number one. I was number two. He treated me like an equal all the way."

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Jackie Stewart quote:

"Oh, I think he's superb, and I believe he'll get better and better. At the moment he still makes mistakes, misses the odd apex, gets up on a curb, uses a little too much road on the way out sometimes, but i'm being hypercritical here. His level of natural talent is phenomenal - there's real genius in his car control."

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Gilles quote:

"I love motor racing. To me it's a sport, not a technical exercise. My deal Formula One car would be something like a McLaren M23 with a big normally aspirated engine, 800 hp, 21 inch rear tyres. A lot of people say we
should have narrower tires, but I don't agree because you need big tyres to slow you down when you spin. And you need a lot of horsepower to unstick big tyres, to make the cars slide. That would be a bloody fantastic spectacle, I can tell you. We would take corners one gear lower than we do now, and get the cars sideways. You know, people still rave about Ronnie Peterson in a Lotus 72, and I understand that. I agree with them.
That's the kind of entertainment I want to give the crowds. Smoke the tyres ! Yeah ! I [care about the fans], because I used to be one of them ! I believe the crowd is really losing out at the moment, and that's
bad."

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Walter Wolf quote:

"[Gilles] is a super, super, super talented driver with the ability which happen very seldom. A man gets so much ability, so much feeling for a car".

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Enzo Ferrari Quote:

" ...and when they presented me with this tiny Canadian, this miniscule bundle of nerves, I instantly recognized in him the physique of the great Nuvolari and I said to myself, `let's give him a try."

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Rene Arnoux Quote:

"It was terrible when Gilles died. I cried that day and the next one, too, even though I had to race ...and I remember the feeling that we were all starting equal, from now on. Villeneuve was gone. We all knew he had a
talent beyond our reach."

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Alain Prost Quote:

" ...with me and my competitors it's battle for pole position as that's important but with Gilles you will see a battle for everything ...[including] 10th place ..."
"He made the fastest start of anybody here. I thought he must know a trick ...all season he had quicker starts, no one could compare"

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Juan Manuel Fangio Quote:

"He will remain as a member of the family of the truly great drivers in auto racing history. Mr Enzo Ferrari, who is an authority on these matters, has compared Villeneuve to Tazio Nuvolari. Nuvolari in my younger days was the great idol. All drivers wanted to equal the great Nuvolari. They struggled to match but could only imitate him. To be compared to Nuvolari is to receive the highest praise. Villeneuve did not race to finish, he did not race for points. He raced to win. Although small in stature he was a giant."

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Keke Rosberg Quote:

"To Gilles, racing truly was a sport, which is why he would never chop you. Something like that he'd look on with contempt. You didn't have to be a good driver to do that, let alone a great one. Anyone could do that.
Gilles was the hardest ******* I ever raced against, but completely fair. If you'd beaten him to a corner, he accepted it and gave you room. Then he'd be right back at you at the next one! Sure, he took unbelievable risks - but only with himself - and that's why I get ****ed off now when people compare Senna with him. Gilles was a giant of a driver, yes, but he was also a great man."

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Gilles Quote:
On Snowmobiling

"Every winter you would reckon on three or four big spills - and I'm talking bout being thrown onto 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 !"

Mark Hughes, Autosport F1 reporter here. I've been following the Gilles Villeneuve thread and read your comments with interest. I’m reluctant to join the forum discussion because it rightly belongs to readers, not journalists. But while fully respecting the views of everyone on here, on Gilles there's one particular bit that actually I thought I could supply you with a bit more detail on, if you're interested. The bit where cheapracer says:

“No, the way you abuse your extra hp does it. There's not a sensible person alive who would agree Gilles had car sensitivity.”

I would argue that actually the common perception of Gilles lacking sensitivity is a myth, however destructive he may have been. His tyre sensitivity was amazingly good - as I believe I can show you with both the history books and the recollections of those I've interviewed over the years. I happen to have all this stuff handy because I've just been writing features for the forthcoming 30th anniversary of his death.

Some hard facts first:

Montreal 1978. He chose the 143 compound Michelin, significantly softer than the 135 chosen by Reutemann and the Renaults. Michelin advised they did not think it could do a race distance. He proved them wrong and won the race.

Long Beach 1979. He made the exact same choice of 143 compound. Again his team mate (Scheckter) and the other Michelin runners went for the harder compound. Michelin again said they thought it was marginal - he again proved them wrong and won the race.

In 1980, the T5 was such a dog of a car often it could not make its tyres do a full distance. The Michelins had developed to work on the ground effect Renault by now. Neither Scheckter nor Villeneuve could make them last but Villeneuve almost always made them last longer than Scheckter - whilst invariably being well ahead of him. Here are the numbers from that year at the races where they had to stop:

Brazil. GV stopped L8. Scheckter L9. (the exception that proves the rule!)
Long Beach. Scheckter L4. Villeneuve lap 39 (though this was because Scheckter had flat spotted)
Monaco. Scheckter lap 13. Villeneuve lap 21.
France. Scheckter lap 11. Villeneuve lap 21.
Germany. Villeneuve lap 13. Scheckter lap 17 (another one!)
Austria. Scheckter lap 8. Villeneuve lap 20.
Holland. Scheckter lap 10. Villeneuve lap 17.

Miss out the anomalous one where Scheckter has flat spotted and on average Gilles was making those tyres last about 5 laps longer than Scheckter.

Now here's some quotes I got from various people about this particular point (Villeneuve's tyre usage).

Pierre Dupasquier (Michelin): "Yes, he was a little crazy. But I tell you, he was not hard on the tyre! He had fantastic feel and sensitivity. I could not believe it at first, but he was giving us really good direction from when we first started testing with Ferrari, much better than we were getting with Renault. Of the two Ferrari drivers at that time, Reutemann was very sensitive too, but Gilles could actually make them last longer. At Montreal we told him no way were those tyres going to last - but they did. He was like a magician with tyres! I know people dont realise this because the image is of him driving with three wheels and locking up fighting Arnoux, but those instances were not about making the tyres last. When he again made the choice of the soft tyre for Long beach in '79 I was again concerned, but by this time I had more faith in him because of what he had done in Montreal - and also what he had done one race before Long Beach at Kyalami. If you remember, there he came from half a minute back to catch Scheckter, made Jody work his tyres too hard and then just cruised past."

Scheckter: "He loved the image he had at Ferrari as the daredevil. But it was just for show. I used to ride with him from Nice and all the way there he would drive perfectly normal but as soon as he got near the factory and people were recognising him, he'd be wheelspinning and sliding and driving like a crazy man. It was just show. He was actually a very sensitive driver, he seemed to have a better feel for tyres than I did, could seem to make them last better even when he was going faster. That wasn't really an issue for me in '79, but it certainly was in '80."

Bruno Giacomelli: "He was not only fantastically quick. He had everything. He knew a lot of the technical side - in fact, he was a connoisseur of that. He knew exactly what the car was doing and he could talk about it very well. He was a very sensitive driver actually. He was certainly the greatest driver I ever saw - a guy that was going to win many, many world championships. When he first arrived in F1 his driving style was not really suitable for F1. He was still quick but the style made him have accidents too. But he learned and though he remained spectacular, he became smooth as well. People get the two confused. You can still be super-smooth but be right on the limits, using all the track and more. People saw him pushing like hell because his cars weren't competitive in 1980 and '81 - up on the grass, crazy things - but I tell you, he was smooth in the way that he used the car, in the inputs he made into it. You could see that just following him. He had one of the smoothest styles of all of us."

There's more, but I've probably bored you enough. I, like some of you, watched every race Gilles did live. For me, he was head and shoulders above the others - and quite a few (but not all) of his peers agreed. Laffite, Lauda, Arnoux, Prost, Tambay all are on record as saying he was the best of them all.

Anyway,
Best wishes
Mark

Exploring the captivating legacy of Gilles Villeneuve in Formula 1, a tale of passion, madness, and unwavering determination, reminiscent of the legendary Tazio Nuvolari. A thrilling journey through history and the relentless pursuit of greatness with snow day predictor Canada.