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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p>\nGilles Villeneuve: Bulldozers and MGA Antics<\/h2>\n
So much for the second Ferrari deployment. He didn't exactly have a fortunate debut with Scuderia at his home Grand Prix in Mosport, after a practice crash. Back to the Kyalami conversation with Joseph Gilles Henri, that's the full first name combination, born on January 18, 1952, in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, in the Canadian province of Quebec. Relaxed, because he had just narrowly beaten the team veteran, Carlos Reutemann, he recounted: \u201eI wanted to become a race car driver when I was just ten years old. Nothing else interested me, no books, and no music. Maybe some soul, blues, or even Dixieland jazz.\u201c At 15, he was given an MGA, with which \u2013 as well as with his uncle's bulldozer \u2013 he caused a stir in the area. Without a driver's license, mind you! \u201eThat satisfied my horsepower hunger and was more fun than going to the conservatory, where I was supposed to be trained as an orchestral trumpeter. My dad, a piano tuner, would have liked that. My lips couldn't handle the stupid blowing at all. Then at the beginning of winter, I became aware of the snowmobile races that are very popular in our province. \u201cThis is it,' I thought.\" It was in Montreal that Gilles Villeneuve celebrated his first Grand Prix victory, with his future teammate, Jody Scheckter, in the Wolf-Ford WR6, and his current teammate, Carlos Reutemann, in second and third. A big, passionate kiss between the Villeneuves on the podium was in order. His second Formula 1 success came in 1979 in South Africa \u2013 ahead of a somewhat disappointed Jody Scheckter. Gilles said to Jody after the race: \u201eI really would have begrudged you the win in front of your home crowd.\u201c But Jody, despite the Ferrari team order to Gilles not to jeopardize the win, had only managed to get within three and a half seconds of the Canadian. Villeneuve ahead of Scheckter also in Long Beach \u2013 and with a significant margin and a new lap record. Jody was more annoyed about qualifying: \u201eYou toil away for an hour and a half, using up one set of tires after another, and get sent to the second row by your own teammate.\u201c A new lap record also in Zolder, then the Ferrari stopped with a completely empty fuel tank! With Gilles on pole and taking the win: For Jody, the world was back in order in his adopted home of Monaco. With a second place in Dijon, Villeneuve had moved up to second place in the championship standings behind Scheckter. Despite a completely botched Silverstone weekend for Ferrari, this order did not change. With no points in sight due to tire problems in Hockenheim, Ferrari designer Mauro Forghieri ordered Gilles to pit, fit super-soft tires, to at least set the fastest race lap. Gilles did just that. In Zandvoort, a tire failure destroyed the left rear suspension of the Ferrari 312T4. Gilles stated: \u201cThat's the championship gone for me!\" Thanks to second places in Austria, Italy, and Canada, he had at least managed to secure the title of Vice-World Champion behind Jody Scheckter. The promising Comprex supercharger hummed in the new Ferrari 126C, thrilling the new driver combination of Gilles Villeneuve and Didier Pironi. However, it didn't see action at the season's start in Kyalami because the FOCA had only agreed late to the FISA's skirt ban. Since Kyalami therefore didn't have World Championship status, the real racing began in Long Beach, but Ferrari's points tally after three GPs was \u201e0.\u201c After the qualifying session in Rio-Jacarepag\u00faa, which was sunny unlike the race, he told me, \u201eI drove my heart out, look where Didier is \u2013 ten places behind me!\u201c Gilles had to retire after 26 laps due to lack of turbo boost. Partially driving beyond his limits, he acted as a lawnmower several times on the side of the Aut\u00f3dromo de Buenos Aires track in Argentina. Pole position at the Autodromo Dino Ferrari in Imola, Gilles said, \u201eFinally, we are where we belong.\u201c A tactical error cost him the victory, as the leading Gilles switched from rain tires to slicks too early and actually unnecessarily. It had barely started raining again when he did so. In Monaco, the tide finally turned! Gilles won, and narrowly beaten by Jacques Laffite, John Watson, and Carlos Reutemann, he also piloted his Ferrari 126\/CK (52) to victory in Jarama. Only retirements and a tenth-place finish in the following six Grands Prix: A disaster! The conclusion to the crazy rain battle in Montreal was a bit more forgiving, with a third place despite three collisions. Here, Jacques Laffite was the only driver without spins, off-road excursions, or crashes. Didier Pironi on Gilles Villeneuve: \u201ePrivately, he's a nice guy you can get along with well, but when it comes to the Ferrari, he has problems with the technology, no wonder with that crappy hydraulics.\u201c Gilles: \u201eIt's way too hard, driving it feels like being in an oversized go-kart.\u201c Gilles\u201e 1982 began completely off the rails: second on the grid but engine failure in Kyalami. Second fastest in Rio but, leading the race, he was unsettled by eventual winner Nelson Piquet and spun into the barriers off the track. Third in Long Beach but disqualified after a Tyrrell protest concerning a two-piece rear wing on the Ferrari. The fact that skirts were back \u201cin\u201e bothered Gilles immensely: \u201cShit, the centrifugal forces... the spectators want to see drifts. If something goes wrong now, you can hardly react; it's damn dangerous.\u201e Gilles had a completely different kind of anger in Imola, namely with Didier Pironi, who ignored the team's intended finishing order and crossed the line ahead of Gilles. Correspondingly angry \u2013 \u201cI'm not speaking another word to Didier\u201e \u2013 Gilles entered the Zolder practice session, wanting to make it clear with \u201ckamikaze\u201e laps who was in charge here, after Pironi had undercut his previous best time. Ferrari team manager Marco Piccinini: \u201cWe don't have any team orders, at most recommendations.\"
\nFrom snowmobile to the circuit<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Gilles](\"https:\/\/slickpix.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/gilles-villeneuve-curbs-magazin-klassicher-motorsport-im-gespraech-150x150.jpg\")
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\n\u201eAt 17, I competed in my first snowmobile races. They didn\u2019t cost much, and if I did well, they paid off handsomely.\u201c Gilles\u2014who, by the way, raced his Alouette snowmobile with the number 13 on it\u2014was so successful that, as a two-time snowmobile champion, he pocketed around 16,000 Canadian dollars in prize money. With the earnings from \u201ewinter sports,\u201c he was able to finance his regional summer racing activities in 1973\u2014initially in Formula Ford. There, he won seven out of ten races. The following year, he founded his own Formula Atlantic team, with which he finished fifth in the Canadian championship in 1975. \u201eI did everything myself, was my own mechanic, and even overhauled the engines myself.\u201c In 1976, he dominated this international formula in the U.S. and Canada to such an extent that, in addition to a lucrative advertising contract with Marlboro, he received an F1 offer from Teddy Mayer in September for the 1977 British Grand Prix. He kept himself in shape with four Can-Am starts for Walter Wolf and, after Silverstone, a World Sportscar Championship race at Mosport\u2014where he finished third overall alongside Eddie Cheever in a Faltz BMW 320i. \u201eIt\u2019s actually funny that I ended up at Ferrari and my friend Patrick Tambay, who had negotiated with the old Enzo before me, then went to McLaren.\u201c Gilles and Patrick, rivals on the racetrack, were best friends. When Gilles moved to Europe, he initially settled in the charming town of Plascassier near Cannes. \u201eIt was convenient, since Patrick lives practically around the corner, and Walter Wolf also resides in the neighborhood\u2014albeit quite poshly up on the mountain at the \u201cBastide en plein Ciel,\u201e a celebrity retreat with its own security. Although I now live in the land of my ancestors, the French way of life doesn\u2019t suit me.\u201c His English\u2014a bumpy American slang where the letter \u201eR\u201c practically rolls off the tongue\u2014was something Gilles had only picked up during various Atlantic races in the U.S. As a true \u201eQuebecois,\u201c one speaks only French, or rather, what they consider to be French there. It\u2019s a difference akin to that between Cologne dialect and Saxon. \u201cOn the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur, I searched in vain for food stands serving burgers and steaks. I couldn\u2019t care less about the expensive, posh restaurants. For the racing season in Europe, I\u2019ll need a motorhome where my Joanne can really cook up a storm.\u201d
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\nMirage on the pole, tank in the last starting row<\/strong>
\nGilles, married to Joanne since 1972 and father to a son named Jacques and his two-years-younger sister Melanie: \u201eI just need my loved ones around me. That's the only way I can truly relax. Parties and all the fuss before and after the races are an abomination to me. Not to mention social events with tuxedos and bow ties. Publicity is limited to what's necessary for me, completely unlike Jackie Stewart, whom I admire.\u201c He said this and ordered another portion of ice cream for us. \u201eSo your lips don't dry out and you can finally put down your pen.\u201c At these words, he looked like a nice little boy, almost like an \u201einnocent lamb,\u201c whose tough racing pro persona you couldn't see at all. But in the Ferrari cockpit, as the coming years would show, his girlish face would freeze into an incredibly determined expression. As a father, however, he was exemplary. I still remember June 2, 1978, in Jarama: I had scratched the outlines of the race track into the sand in front of Gilles\u201e large motorhome. Gilles had promised me an in-depth conversation, tied to a small condition: \u201cWhile I shower and Joanne cooks something for us, please play Jarama racing with Melanie a little.\" The little girl had placed a Mirage sports car in pole position and a tank in the last starting row using Jacques' Corgi Toys and Solido collection. Since there was no Ferrari model on hand, she was later allowed, to the astonishment of the Ferrari mechanics, to take a seat in Papa's 312T3 (034) and cranked the steering wheel wildly. Upon entering the Villeneuve motorhome, the rule for everyone was naturally: street shoes were as taboo as Gilles' racing slippers.<\/p>\nGilles Villeneuve's first F1 win was at home<\/h2>\n
\nFerrari drove behind<\/strong>
\nA forgettable start: not finishing the first four races in 1980, and a sixth place in Zolder \u2013 Gilles Villeneuve and Ferrari were in a slump. Gilles: \u201eSince Jody has only collected two points so far, the Scuderia will have to put in overtime to be competitive again.\u201c World Champion Jody Scheckter only fourth from last on the Monaco grid, Gilles at least fifth, a lap down on winner Reutemann: \u201eThat's not even a consolation prize.\u201c But then came the bombshell, as Ferrari, Renault, and Alfa Romeo withdrew from the start in Jarama due to the dispute between the so-called FOCA and FISA teams. However, even with a reunited field in France and England, it was clear: Ferrari was among the backmarkers. Jody Scheckter, second to last on the Brands Hatch grid: \u201eIt's a shame,\u201c and Gilles: \u201eHopefully, the fact that Ferrari is currently the second-to-last marque in the Constructors\u201c Cup hurts Forghieri too!\u201e And that\u2019s how things looked after the 12th WDC race in Monza. Third to last on the Montreal grid, but fifth at the finish: \u201cAt least there was something positive to report from home with us Villeneuves, as my younger brother Jacques had won the Formula Atlantic race in the support program.\u201e His season summary: \u201cEven if our T5 wasn't spectacular, I hope for a sensible 'ground effect' chassis with plenty of turbo power next year, although as a passionate racer, I'm fundamentally against skirts.\" And it was precisely this skirt issue that had led to the dispute between FOCA and FISA.<\/p>\nOnly two wins but eight retirements in 1981<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p>\nTrouble with Didier Pironi<\/h3>\n
\nThe end<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>![\"gilles](\"https:\/\/slickpix.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/gilles-villeneuve-frau-rundenprotokoll-curbs-magazin-klassicher-motorsport-150x150.jpg\")
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\nWith used qualifying tires, Gilles thundered over the crest behind the pit lane chicane on the track and caught up with Jochen Mass's RAM March 821 at the \u201eButte,\u201c a fast left-hand turn. Jochen immediately moved right to let the Ferrari through on the inside\u2014the racing line. However, Gilles apparently wanted to pass on the outside and catapulted the Ferrari into the air over the March's left rear wheel. At around 270 km\/h, there was no time to react! The Ferrari first crashed sideways into the guardrail, was thrown back up, and broke apart upon impact with its front end. Gilles\u2014still strapped into the aluminum seatback\u2014flew with his seat against a track fence post with full force. The emergency ambulance from the University Clinic of Leuven determined that, in addition to cervical fractures, his spinal cord had also been severed. There was no chance of survival! At 9:21 PM on Saturday evening, Gilles, kept alive only by machines, died in the presence of his wife Joanne, who had been flown in from Monaco. After being transported to Canada, he was laid out in an open coffin with his helmet on the shroud. Gilles looked as he was known, with a slight smile on his lips.<\/p>\n
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