Second Opinion

Browse pages
Current page

1

Current page

2

Current page

3

Current page

4

Current page

5

Current page

6

Current page

7

Current page

8

Current page

9

Current page

10

Current page

11

Current page

12

Current page

13

Current page

14

Current page

15

Current page

16

Current page

17

Current page

18

Current page

19

Current page

20

Current page

21

Current page

22

Current page

23

Current page

24

Current page

25

Current page

26

Current page

27

Current page

28

Current page

29

Current page

30

Current page

31

Current page

32

Current page

33

Current page

34

Current page

35

Current page

36

Current page

37

Current page

38

Current page

39

Current page

40

Current page

41

Current page

42

Current page

43

Current page

44

Current page

45

Current page

46

Current page

47

Current page

48

Current page

49

Current page

50

Current page

51

Current page

52

Current page

53

Current page

54

Current page

55

Current page

56

Current page

57

Current page

58

Current page

59

Current page

60

Current page

61

Current page

62

Current page

63

Current page

64

Current page

65

Current page

66

Current page

67

Current page

68

Current page

69

Current page

70

Current page

71

Current page

72

Current page

73

Current page

74

Current page

75

Current page

76

Current page

77

Current page

78

Current page

79

Current page

80

Current page

81

Current page

82

Current page

83

Current page

84

Current page

85

Current page

86

Current page

87

Current page

88

Current page

89

Current page

90

Current page

91

Current page

92

Current page

93

Current page

94

Current page

95

Current page

96

Current page

97

Current page

98

Current page

99

Current page

100

Current page

101

Current page

102

Current page

103

Current page

104

Current page

105

Current page

106

Current page

107

Current page

108

Current page

109

Current page

110

Current page

111

Current page

112

Current page

113

Current page

114

Current page

115

Current page

116

Current page

117

Current page

118

Current page

119

Current page

120

Current page

121

Current page

122

Current page

123

Current page

124

Current page

125

Current page

126

Current page

127

Current page

128

Current page

129

Current page

130

Current page

131

Current page

132

Current page

133

Current page

134

Current page

135

Current page

136

Current page

137

Current page

138

Current page

139

Current page

140

Current page

141

Current page

142

Current page

143

Current page

144

Current page

145

Current page

146

Current page

147

Current page

148

Runner-up in his home race, as he is in the Championship, Jacques Villeneuve has nevertheless struggled to live up to some some people’s expectations. Mark Skewis considers his impact on F1

He was the media’s messiah, The son of an icon for a generation, fresh from victory in the biggest race in the world the Indy 500 and a man who could enliven a year which threatened to be rendered dull by the Williams team’s domination. Jacques Villeneuve had it all, it seemed, and he duly obliged the world’s press by giving his team-mate a hard time in Melbourne’s season-opener.

But then it began to go wrong. The Villeneuve legend may interest the media but, as Jacques’ uncle remarked in acid fashion to the press before the race in Canada, it doesn’t appear to interest his nephew.

Furthermore, having led his team-mate at the opening race, he has won only at the Nurburgring, where Damon Hill made a poor start. In the same period, Hill’s five wins have paved his route to the title.

Ironically, Villeneuve’s pace in Australia on a circuit where no one had prior experience has proved a hard act to follow. “In Melbourne a newcomer like myself was at less of a disadvantage,” he admits. “From the outset, I was aware that I was onto a good thing with Williams. I was joining a team with a good car and good engine. I was also conscious that my arrival in F1 coincided with the moment when practically all the top drivers had just switched teams. That’s not a situation that happens very often. I knew they would need a certain amount of time to get used to each other, so the cards were stacked in my favour.

“In a way Melbourne made it more difficult after, but there is nothing wrong in that. The higher you are, the lower you can fall but you don’t get into F1 with a top team not wanting to be up there. If you end up being up there, the plan is to stay up there. If you are with a mid-range team then you have excuses. You don’t have any excuses with Williams.”

So why hasn’t he lived up to early expectations? Initially, there was talk of the newcomer being headstrong, of his trying Indycar settings rather than using the team’s own data. Much of that was blown up out of proportion, though. He did experiment with some oval tweaks, but only on the high-speed corners at Estoril in testing. In reality, his settings have inevitably evolved much closer to Hill’s than was initially the case.

Impressed though he was by Villeneuve’s debut in Australia, Williams Technical Director Patrick Head counselled that it might be unrealistic to expect his new charge to take the establishment by storm. His assessment was correct, for it has proved apparent that a lack of circuit knowledge, allied to the restriction on laps in practice, has hindered the French-Canadian’s progress.

“It would be nice to be able to drive 10 laps with no other aim than getting to know the track. With the number of laps restricted, this is a luxury I simply cannot afford,” Jacques explains. “After my first three laps, I am already supposed to have got close to the limits of the car with a view to working on settings. For someone new like myself, that is a real handicap.

“I still haven’t reached the same degree of confidence that I enjoyed last year in Indycar. In order to drive a car to the limit, you have to be able to predict its reactions. For the moment I know what my car is going to do, but it doesn’t yet react quite the way I want it to, I am still on a level where I have to work like crazy just to be on the pace.”

In the second half of the season experience should not prove such an issue. Villeneuve has already tested at Magny-Cours, Silverstone, Monza, and Estoril, and has prior experience at Suzuka.

His victory at the European Grand Prix, where he was harassed by Schumacher throughout the second half of the race, demonstrated his ability to cope under pressure. The cool manner in which he dealt with the media intrusion, in Canada, where he confessed to’ feeling “like a mouse in a cage”, further underlined his composure. Above all, his home race indicated that he may, after all, be able to challenge Hill in the remaining GPs.

Damon conceded that he had to dig deep in qualifying, where he emerged on top by just two hundredths of a second. The race itself hinged upon the first corner. Had Hill’s aggression not won the corner, his colleague could easily have won the day, for Damon could have spent the first 20 laps frittering away the advantage of his lighter fuel load behind the sister car. As it was, the early lead he amassed, allied to Villeneuve’s brief entanglement with Herbert’s Sauber in traffic, enabled the championship leader successfully to execute a two-stop gameplan where the bulk of the field had opted for a solitary refuelling stop.

Steep though his learning curve may be in the car, Villeneuve admits that life outside the cockpit has been perhaps the biggest eye-opener of all. “You have three times as many journalists in F1 and they are more hectic than the journalists I have been used to. It gets a little crazy.” And every one of those journos is waiting to deliver a verdict. For now, the jury remains out…