Racing is Life Style: Gilles Villeneuve

Thursday, June 10, 2021

Gilles Villeneuve

ORIGINAL: Gilles Villeneuve | 1981 Ferrari 126CK

by Alex Stutchbury Art

Available here on GPBox

Gilles Villeneuve, "Le petit prince" as they call him, was the kind of racing driver who never compromised.
No wonder the Tifosi made him such a national hero. Few people know that he was about to leave Ferrari and that he was about to make some radical changes in his private and nomad life when he died in Belgium on May 1982.

Villeneuve was seriously considering creating his own team. A path that might well have brought him to a dead end as it was later for his son Jacques with BAR-Honda.
What is very likely in my humble opinion is that Gilles would never have become a Formula1 world champion. His pure attacking temperament would have prevented him from reaching this goal. Didier Pironi was already on his way in 1982.

The latter was a calculating driver, very intelligent and reasonable, whom Niki Lauda himself called the "French Lauda". On the other hand there were Lauda in person, Piquet and Prost, 3 strategy giants. Gilles would never have been able to beat them on their field.
However, the public - especially Italians - prefer this kind of fearless daredevil racers to calculators who only think of picking up as many points as possible.
But I wonder if the Tifosi would have forgiven him for leaving them for his own team...
Now destiny having done its work, Gilles memory will remain more alive than any other driver having raced for the prancing horse.