Jacques Villeneuve: 'I'm racing at Goodwood for bragging rights over Jenson Button'

He attended the Revival last year, fitting right in with a two-piece suit and fedora, and liked what he saw enough to sign up for 2025.

“It looked like everyone was having fun and that’s the point in going down,” he says. “It’s a beautiful track, it’s got a good rhythm, and the cars are beautiful.

“You don’t go there to be a world champion. You go there to have fun, drive around, and hopefully everybody is in the same mindset. It’s fun in and out of the car: I go down with my wife and we dress up a bit.”

Hearing this, you could think that Villeneuve is simply there for an exhilarating weekend — and he wouldn’t be the only one. But his approach to historic racing is far more thoughtful, and follows from his experience driving some of the Formula 1 Ferraris raced by his father Gilles.

“What I love in those cars, when I get in them, is to start imagining what was going through the minds of the drivers that were actually racing them in the day, for whom that was the latest technology,” says Villeneuve. “That’s what they were pushing. That’s what they were working on.

“I remember seeing [Gilles] testing at [Ferrari test track] Fiorano, and then I jumped in the same car, and I was telling myself, when he sat in that car, the first time, he’d have thought, ‘This is so amazing, this is the new technology,’.

“That’s what I found amazing, trying to get into that mindset. Back then, that was the modern day, and to see them take the risk they were taking and pushing limits in those cars, that’s what I find fantastic.

“That’s what I enjoy when I sit in there to try and imagine what was going through their mind. That is part of our heritage. Those drivers, that era, everything before us made what we have today.”

Villeneuve recounted the “magic” moment when driving Gilles’ 1979 Ferrari 312 T4 at Fiorano. “It was still his original seat and original belt, and there was still this sweat in them and everything. I didn’t even need to do a seat fit. It fitted as if I’d moulded the seat myself. Yeah, that was cool.”

It’s here that the topic of safety comes up. Given the death of his father at Zolder when Jacques was 11, it’s unsurprising that he’d have qualms about competing in cars built long before modern safety standards, and he says that it’s one reason for taking his time before racing historic cars.

“There’s always been some caution there,” he says, again recalling driving his father’s cars. “You get to the car. In the garage, you can see your toes [poking out at the front]. Once you put the bodywork on, which is just, I don’t know, plastic, you’re in a dangerous car but you feel safe because you see some protection.

“Then you drive with habit, the competitor in you takes over. You go up through the gears and you forget that you’re in a car that’s much more dangerous than what you’re used to and that’s the risk.”

Assured by the standard of racing he saw last year, and confident of the car that he’ll be racing, which Goodwood’s owner, the Duke of Richmond helped to arrange, Villeneuve has now decided to take the plunge.

The luridly-painted AC Cobra first raced in Hawaii in the 1960s and was still competing into the mid-1980s. “It’s a very high-spec, high quality car and I’ve had a few chats with the owner,” says Villeneuve. “Now I’m very excited.”

That said, Villeneuve can’t help but be frustrated at the necessary limitations of historic racing, which crimp his competitiveness.

“There’s a big diversity of cars. You can have a five year difference [within the same race], and the difference in cars at that point is huge. So it’s all fun, but if you’re racing cars from 1970 to 1975 and then you win in the car from 1970 okay, you feel great. But if you win in the car from ‘75 and you beat the car from from ‘70 then, no. That kind of thing gets me a bit but they are beautiful cars to drive. Driving them around, yes but racing them I don’t know.

“They are very dangerous cars, so you keep a big margin and that;s not something I’m used to. Also, I like being very finicky with the set-up and discovering things, which is not really part of historical racing.”

Is this, though, his future? As the 30th anniversary of his entry into Formula 1 approaches, is Villeneuve’s historical racing debut a natural career progressi…..

There’s no chance to finish the question.

“Oh no, no, no, no…” asserts Villeneuve instantly. “I still love racing professionally with a team, working with the engineers and pushing the limit, figuring out how to work faster and faster.”

Working as an ambassador for Williams, as well as a commentator and pundit at grands prix, doesn’t allow him much time to compete but Villeneuve remains razor-focused on one objective: “Somehow I still need to try and win Le Mans. That’s the ultimate goal right now.”

Aged 54, Villeneuve realises he’s fighting against the odds, but the prize is too great to ignore.

As a Monaco Grand Prix and Indy 500 winner, a Le Mans victory would make Villeneuve only the second driver in racing history to achieve the fabled Triple Crown, after Graham Hill.

He finished second in the 24-hour race with Peugeot in 2008 and even now, 17 years on, he talks of agonising on that moment. Does he run through what happened and think, ‘If only’?

“Yeah, yeah. And I still find it frustrating. The management decided to save a second place instead of going for a win, which I find completely pointless at Le Mans. It’s basically a race we managed to lose.”

Villeneuve’s most recent attempt was a disastrous 2023 stint with a team that revived the Vanwall name, but failed to make it to Le Mans that year, something he describes as “one of my worst experiences racing ever”.

But with new Hypercar teams arriving on an annual basis, there’s rarely been a better moment to secure a top-level sports car seat. Not that that Villeneuve has any promising leads right now. “I don’t know how to get it!” he admits bluntly.

Perhaps a standout drive in a lairy V8 Cobra could be the opportunity to remind teams of his talent.