#19 – Gilles Villeneuve

Some consider Gilles Villeneuve to be the greatest racing driver of all time. Perhaps this is partly because, arguably, he was the most exciting F1 driver ever, largely due to his style of always pushing as hard as possible and drifting through corners, particularly in the rain, in an oversteering and ‘on the edge’ car, with his Ferrari in 1980 and 1981 particularly difficult to handle, while Villeneuve also had outstanding racecraft. This made him extremely popular with fans, and Murray Walker often described him as the ‘darling of the Tifosi.’ Enzo Ferrari considered Villeneuve to be, apart from Tazio Nuvolari and Stirling Moss, the greatest driver of all time, and perhaps it is no coincidence that the three of them are surely the most exciting drivers in motor racing history.

Ranking the drivers based on their absolute best moments would also place Villeneuve right near the top, and he had the potential to become one of the greatest ever because almost every skill required to be the best driver in Formula 1 was evident in one of these moments. Villeneuve had outstanding speed, showed by his remarkable qualifying lap in Monaco 1981 to go on the front row of the grid in such a difficult car, while his racecraft was also an obvious strength, highlighted by the remarkable defences against Rene Arnoux in Dijon 1979 as he repeatedly repassed the superior Renault, and his holding off of four faster cars in Jarama 1981 for many laps. But Villeneuve’s first win in Montreal 1978 demonstrated that his tyre-management skills were also outstanding, winning using tyres not recommended for the full distance.

Had Gilles Villeneuve lived longer, it is highly likely that he would have put all these skills together and become one of the greatest of all time, a particularly exciting proposition given his career would have overlapped significantly with Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, and he would surely have been world champion of 1982 and 1983. But in the time that he did race, Villeneuve was not as complete a driver as Alan Jones, for example, who he raced against. His main weaknesses were an abundance of errors, and his inconsistency, with many ‘off-days’ which meant that, away from his moments of brilliance, Villeneuve wasn’t really any better than Didier Pironi in 1981. Had he become more experienced, these weaknesses would surely have been ironed out and he would have become one of the greatest of all time, but that has not been factored into this ranking and so Villeneuve does not rank higher.

Gilles Villeneuve made his Formula 1 debut with McLaren in 1977, following early success in snowmobile racing and a memorable drive in a non-championship Formula Atlanta race at Trois-Rivieres in 1976, beating James Hunt, Alan Jones and Vittorio Brambilla along the way, which likely paved the way for his debut. His first race was in Silverstone where he qualified ninth and finished 11th, but had done well to outqualify teammate Jochen Mass. However, McLaren decided to sign Patrick Tambay instead of him for the 1978 season.

Instead, Villeneuve got a chance with Ferrari due to Niki Lauda’s withdrawal from the team just before the end of the 1977 season, and Enzo Ferrari reportedly compared him to Nuvolari in their first meeting. Villeneuve’s first race for Ferrari was in Mosport Park, Canada, but was extremely underwhelming as he crashed in qualifying and spun off in the race while outside the points. In Fuji, he made an aggressive move on Ronnie Peterson and they collided, causing Villeneuve’s car to fly into the crowd and kill two people.

Gilles Villeneuve’s first full season in Formula 1 came in 1978, as he raced alongside Carlos Reutemann at Ferrari. The general theme of the season was that Villeneuve, despite being a rookie, was on par with Reutemann for pace, but finished a long way behind him in the championship as he made many mistakes. In Buenos Aires, he started sixth and finished eighth behind Reutemann as the Ferrari struggled with tyres, but Reutemann won dominantly in Rio while Villeneuve spun out having run in the points. He outqualified Reutemann for the first time in Kyalami but retired.

Ferrari were quick in Long Beach and Villeneuve qualified second behind Reutemann, taking the lead from his teammate at the start and leading for half the race until he crashed overtaking backmarkers and handed the win to his teammate. Villeneuve retired again in Monaco, but claimed his first points finish in Zolder with fourth, having run second until he suffered a puncture, his best drive yet. Villeneuve would not score again for six races, both he and Ferrari struggling for pace. On the Osterreichring, many cars crashed out in wet conditions but Villeneuve saved a major slide and finished third. He was sixth in Zandvoort, then started second in Monza but passed Andretti for the lead and led most of the race until the Lotus got him back. Villeneuve then received a penalty for jumping the start. He retired from second in Watkins Glen with an engine failure.

The final race of the season was in Montreal, and Gilles Villeneuve chose to race the soft tyre against warnings from Michelin that it wouldn’t last the distance. He ran fourth initially, passed Scheckter and Jones for second and then inherited the lead as Jean-Pierre Jarier retired to take his first Grand Prix victory, a sign that Villeneuve was not just a wild racer, he could also drive smoothly and this was one of his finest drives. However, Villeneuve was only ninth in the championship with a fraction of Reutemann’s points due to his many mistakes during the season.

For 1979, the Ferrari was probably the best car on the grid and Villeneuve was engaged in a title battle with teammate Jody Scheckter, and while he was certainly faster than his teammate, Scheckter’s greater consistency enabled him to prevail. At the start of the year it was Ligier who had the advantage with Jacques Laffite winning the first two races and Villeneuve claiming just two points as he held off Scheckter for fifth in Interlagos. Then in Kyalami, Villeneuve started third but passed Jean-Pierre Jabouille to lead in wet conditions. As the track dried, he pitted and came out behind Scheckter, closing him down until Scheckter was forced to pit for new tyres and Villeneuve took victory. Villeneuve was on pole for the first time in Long Beach and won dominantly by half a minute from his teammate, with his skill for looking after the tyres once again proving crucial. Villeneuve now led the championship for the first time.

Villeneuve failed to score in Jarama or Zolder, after a mistake trying to pass Reutemann in the former and contact with Regazzoni in the latter, after which he had to pit but charged back to seventh. Then in Monaco he retired from second, behind Scheckter, with transmission failure. Next came Dijon, where Villeneuve put in an extraordinary drive. From third on the grid, he made a fantastic start to take the lead and held off the faster Renaults for half the race until his tyres dropped off and Jabouille passed him. In the closing laps, Arnoux came up behind Villeneuve, whose car was now struggling badly for grip. Arnoux made his move for second but Villeneuve refused to give up and went back through. They then traded positions many times over the following laps with Villeneuve repeatedly repassing Arnoux despite his car being well past its best at this time, and he was able to beat him to second place, after many corners running side by side. It was surely the greatest battle in Formula 1 history. Rene Arnoux said afterwards, ‘I knew I had been beaten by the greatest driver in the world.’

Villeneuve retired in Silverstone with fuel problems. On the Osterreichring, Villeneuve started fifth but took the lead at the start, before dropping behind Jones and the Renaults, then retaking second when Jabouille and Arnoux retired. In Zandvoort, Villeneuve passed Jones for the lead and led most of the race in an entertaining battle between the two best of the era, before he spun into the gravel with a puncture. Villeneuve then returned to the pits despite his rear wheel hanging off, a feat that was impressive to watch but somewhat unnecessary and destroyed his Ferrari. In Monza, Villeneuve finished second to Scheckter, having obeyed team orders not to pass him and allow his teammate to take the championship.

The next race came in Montreal and it was another thrilling battle between Alan Jones and Gilles Villeneuve, with the Ferrari passing Jones at the start and leading most of the race before Jones got back through with an exciting overtake. In a wet qualifying session in Watkins Glen, Gilles Villeneuve lapped fastest by 9.5 seconds over teammate Jody Scheckter. Whilst it was a session in which few drivers did a lap, it was still an incredible achievement as Scheckter himself said that he thought his lap had been good enough to be fastest. In the race, he took the lead from Jones in at the start and led in wet conditions until Jones passed him, then he regained the lead as the track dried and he switched to slicks. When Jones retired he had a big lead, but had to nurse his car home after losing oil pressure by coasting through left-handers. He managed it, winning his third race of the season and finishing second in the championship having been the fastest driver of the season, and with the most laps led.

Interestingly, That season the best four results from the first seven races, and the best four from the last eight, counted for the championship. If, like every other season, the first half had contained more races than the second, Villeneuve would have been world champion, although still with a lesser gross tally than Scheckter. It was really his mistakes that had cost him the title, as well as some bad luck.

Unfortunately, the 1980 season was an unprecedented disaster for Ferrari, perhaps the worst season in their history, although Villeneuve still drove the wheels off it and comfortably outperformed a disinterested Scheckter. In Buenos Aires, he forced his way up to second despite the uncompetitive car, but crashed out with suspension failure caused by driving so aggressively. He then qualified a remarkable third in Interlagos and briefly led the race before dropping back and retiring with throttle problems. He failed to finish the next two races but scored one point for sixth in Zolder, and was fifth in Monaco and a strong qualifying. But the car was getting worse as the year progressed, the team focussed on their turbo car for 1981, and both Ferraris seemed to slip further and further down the grid. Villeneuve still managed sixth in Hockenheim, and fifth in Montreal. Despite just six points, he had still shown himself to be among the best drivers on the grid.

Going into the 1981 season, Gilles Villeneuve was paired with Didier Pironi, beginning a famous rivalry between the two. Villeneuve was still the fastest in Formula 1 with Pironi not far behind him, but the car prevented them from battling for the championship as despite the turbo engine giving it a huge amount of power, it had dreadful handling and was suggested to have one quarter of the downforce of the other cars. This is likely to be an exaggeration. Generally during the season, the two drivers were fairly evenly-matched, with Villeneuve holding the slight edge, apart from the occasional race when Villeneuve turned up and put in some of the best drives in Formula 1 history.

In Long Beach, Villeneuve qualified an impressive fifth but was far too aggressive into turn one, braking too late in an attempt to take the lead and sailing off the track, later retiring from the race and mechanical dramas forced him out of each of the first three rounds. In Imola, Villeneuve took a dominant pole and led his teammate at the start of the race in wet conditions before mistakenly pitting for slick tyres and dropping well out of the points. He continued to show extraordinary speed and was close to catching Pironi, struggling with his tyres, at the end before the car let Villeneuve down again. He claimed his first points of the year in Zolder for fourth after Pironi had led at the start.

The next race was Monaco, a track the Ferrari was wholly unsuited to with its good top speed but terrible handling. Didier Pironi had been on pole the year before with Ligier but now started way down in 17th, 2.5 seconds off the pace. That was probably the pace of the car. But Villeneuve qualified second, less than a tenth behind Piquet on pole. It was perhaps the finest qualifying lap of all time. In the race, he ran second for the first stint before Jones passed him, and he held up a train of cars behind. Then Nelson Piquet crashed out of the lead and Jones suffered fuel problems and had to pit, with Villeneuve passing him for the lead and taking a remarkable victory against the odds.

Three weeks later in Jarama, another tight and twisty track that would not suit the Ferrari, he drove even better. This time, Villeneuve was back in seventh on the grid but made a demon start to take third and then passed Reutemann at the start of the second lap to take second. By this time, he was holding off Reutemann as Jones pulled away, but then crashed out of the lead, leaving Villeneuve ahead of Reutemann. There were 66 laps remaining of the race and Villeneuve drove absolutely perfectly for every one of them, keeping away on the straights due to his extra power but not making the slightest of mistakes in the corners and wrestling his bad-handling Ferrari around ahead of a train of cars which grew to five by the end. Reutemann had not being trying especially hard to take the lead, but once Laffite was into second he was making a real effort to get through. Villeneuve never offered him a sniff of an opportunity. It was the greatest drive of his career, and one of the best from any driver in motor racing history. It is also the race I like to use as evidence for why DRS is not good for F1, as it should be possible for any driver to win a race once they are in front if they drive absolutely perfectly into every corner as Villeneuve did in Jarama.

In Paul Ricard, Villeneuve retired again while outside the points, while in Silverstone he crashed out and caused many others to retire, while in Hockenheim he was outqualified by Pironi and finished outside the points. These underwhelming races that surrounded his extraordinary ones are why I don’t consider him to be quite as complete as Alan Jones. He crashed on the Osterreichring and in Zandvoort, at the first corner, while his engine failed in Monza. At his final home race in Montreal, Villeneuve drove brilliantly in wet conditions to finish third despite a couple of spins, and half a lap racing with his front wing broken and obscuring his view. He ran third again in Las Vegas but retired with engine failure, and finished seventh in the championship.

For 1982, it seemed that Ferrari finally had a competitive car once again. Indeed, it would prove to probably be the best on the grid, but Villeneuve never got the best out of it. At the first race in Kyalami, he ran third in the early laps but retired with engine failure. Then in Rio, he started second but passed Prost for the lead on lap one, holding off other cars for half the race until Nelson Piquet attempted to pass him and Villeneuve crashed under pressure. He finished third in Long Beach but was disqualified for an illegal double rear wing, the team attempting to find a loophole in the rule declaring a maximum size for the rear wing by racing with two next to each other. It proved unsuccessful.

The next race came Imola, which was boycotted by all the FOCA teams, leaving just Ferrari and Renault to battle for victory, the other cars in the race uncompetitive. The teams had agreed to put on a show for the crowd in what would otherwise be a dull race with so few cars, but the Renaults both retired and Villeneuve was left leading the race from Pironi. The drivers were shown pit signals telling them to ‘slow’, meaning to hold position, but a few times Pironi passed Villeneuve, the drivers putting on a show for the crowd. On the penultimate lap, Villeneuve overtook Pironi for the lead and believed that would be the end of it, but on the final lap, Pironi ignored team orders to move back through and win the race. At this moment, the friendly relations in the team ended, and Gilles Villeneuve was furious with Didier Pironi, believing that he had betrayed him. While the exact meaning of the pit signals is not totally clear, Villeneuve is probably right about this. But Pironi was not responsible for what happened next.

Villeneuve, furious with Pironi and having said that he would never speak to him again, was desperate to beat his teammate in Zolder. In qualifying, Pironi lapped slightly faster than Villeneuve, who went out again to try and beat Pironi’s time. He was pushing harder than one might expect on his final lap and made contact with Jochen Mass, who moved right to get out of Villeneuve’s way just as Villeneuve moved right to clear Mass. The Ferrari was thrown into the air and crashed heavily, Villeneuve dying later that day. Although no blame can be laid at Pironi’s door for the accident, perhaps Villeneuve had let the move in Imola get to him more than it should have done and drove recklessly as a result. Or perhaps it was a mere coincidence. But one of the fastest drivers in motor racing history had been killed.

In this list, I have rated Villeneuve as the second-greatest never to win a championship. But if he had lived, he surely would have been world champion. Didier Pironi was well on his way to the 1982 title when a terrible accident at Hockenheim ended his career, and so it is likely that Villeneuve would have won instead had he survived. The Ferrari was then perhaps the best car again in 1983 and Villeneuve, a stronger driver than either Arnoux or Tambay, may have won again. After that, it is hard to see where a third title might have come because, apart from a potential opportunity in 1985, the Ferrari was uncompetitive in the years after this and so Villeneuve might have switched teams. He would also have ended up competing with Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, so it would have been three of the all-time greats all battling for the championship.

Villeneuve was as fast as anyone, as shown by his qualifying lap in Monaco, while Dijon and Jarama showed that his racecraft was also unparalleled and his early wins on tyres deemed unsuitable showed that he could drive smoothly and tactically as well. Villeneuve may have been a little inconsistent and error-prone, but it is not too far-fetched to suggest that, had he lived, he would have lost these weaknesses and put together all his strengths, and so might have proved superior to Prost and Senna and been, quite possibly, the greatest driver of all time.

Wins: 6

Pole Positions: 2

Podiums: 13

Race Starts: 67

Points: 402

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