Jacques Villeneuve
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Official Website: Jacques Villeneuve Official Website
Place of Birth: St. Jean-sur-Richelieu
Resides: Monte Carlo
Status: Single
Height: 1.71m
Weight: 66.5kg
Career previous to F1: 1995 Indy (CART) Champion
1995 Winner: Indianapolis 500
Races: 117
Wins: 11 (9.4%)
Podiums: 23 (19.7%)
Pole Positions: 13 (11.1%)
Retirements: 41 (35.0%)
Points Accumulated: 213.000
Debut: 10 Mar 1996
Last Race: 09 Mar 2003
First Win: 28 Apr 1996
Last Win: 28 Sep 1997
First Pole: 10 Mar 1996
Last Pole: 26 Oct 1997 |
View a complete listing of Jacques Villeneuve's Formula 1 results
Driver History
The son of the legendary Gilles Villeneuve, Jacques arrived on the
F1 scene in 1996 to drive for Williams alongside another famous
son, Damon Hill.
Villeneuve had honed his driving skills with two seasons in CART
in the USA, winning the Championship winning in 1995.
His impact in F1 was almost instant, taking pole in his first race
(Melbourne) before an oil leak relegated him to second behind Damon
Hill. He went on to finish second to Hill in that year's World Championship
running the Englishman extremely close - his challenge disappearing
along with his rear wheel in the final race at Suzuka.
His second season was more productive as he fought it out, almost
literally, with Michael Schumacher in a tight season. A rash overtaking
move from the German, which could have taken the pair of them off,
resulted in Schumacher's exit and Jacques becoming Canada's first
World Champion.
In '97 he remained at Williams, however an uncompetitive engine
meant that the Canadian was fighting a losing battle. That said,
many believe that in '98 (and again in '99), the Canadian gave some
of the finest performances of his F1 career, despite the shortcomings
of the equipment at his disposal.
For 1999, Jacques moved to the British American Racing team. For
2000, Villeneuve remained with BAR, and the team’s partnership
with Honda saw them take a great leap forward. Jacques finished
7th in the Drivers’ Title with 17 points, and commited himself
to the team for a further three years.
Villeneuve’s relationship with 2000 team-mate Zonta deteriorated
during the year, and the French/Canadian welcomed the challenge
of Olivier Panis in 2001. Though it wasn't exactly a 'record breaker'
it did set new levels for the team with their first two podiums,
third places at Barcelona and Hockenheim.
Jacques finished the year in 8th place with 12 points, but his
two podiums owed more to the retirement of other cars than wheel-to-wheel
duelling with Ferrari, Williams or McLaren.
2002 was definitely a turn for the worse as the woeful reliability
of the Honda engine coupled with a poor design inherited by incoming
technical director Geoff Willis made for an under-performing car.
The BAR 004's traction and launch control suffered too, and the
fast-starting Villeneuve was regularly swamped on the grid.
JV managed just four points, his best result coming with a 4th
place at Silverstone. For 2003 he is teamed up with Jenson Button
and with a radically re-designed BAR 005 and the sole use of Honda
engines, he could start to reproduce some of his 96 and 97 form
again.
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