Motorsport: Villeneuve just carries on racing

Jacques Villeneuve. Photo / Getty Images

When Jacques Villeneuve, son of one of the best Formula One drivers to ever grace a race track, arrived on the F1 scene it was like watching a Whirling Dervish enter the fray.

Everything Villeneuve sat in he'd make go fast, right from his early days in saloon cars in Italy, European Formula Three, Formula Atlantic and IndyCars.

During the 1995 IndyCar Racing League (IRL) at just 24, Villeneuve became the youngest driver to win both the series and the Indianapolis 500.

After such a stunning start to his main-game career, it was rumoured F1 puppet master Bernie Ecclestone wanted him in F1 because he needed an "American" to race to widen the audience base. It appears Villeneuve being a Canadian wasn't a problem for Ecclestone.

The Williams Formula One team decided to take a chance on the lively, feisty and very fast Villeneuve, who promptly repaid Frank Williams' faith and plonked the car on pole for the first race of the 1996 season.

A fairy-tale debut in F1 wasn't to be and after a ferocious, season-long battle with teammate Damon Hill, Villeneuve had to settle for second in the championship. With the whole motor racing world sitting up and paying attention the following year, the precocious Canadian took it to Michael Schumacher and won the world title in only his second attempt, at one time pulling off the seemingly impossible by passing the German around the outside.

Villeneuve hence became only the third driver to win an F1 championship, hold an Indy 500 title and be an IndyCar series winner - Mario Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi being the others.

Villeneuve looked all set to rule the motor racing world, but it wasn't to be so. Because of a combination of various factors, he never again managed the feats of his first two F1 seasons and, when he was asked to sit out a couple of races in 2005 for up-and-coming Robert Kubica, he packed his bags and walked away.

He didn't abandon racing, just F1, and has been feeling the Nascar waters of late. So it's no surprise that when he was offered a chance to race a V8 Supercar at the Gold Coast 600 recently, he leapt at the chance.

"I was always attracted to those sort of cars and the championship and originally because of Bathurst," said Villeneuve from Montreal.

"Bathurst, however, is a tough race and the cars are tough, so starting at Bathurst is probably not the most intelligent thing you can do.

"So the Gold Coast race was the perfect opportunity to try those sort of cars on a track I knew [Indy and Champ cars used to race at Surfers Paradise] with other international guests, so less pressure.

"We [he and co-driver Paul Drumbell] did pretty well, especially in race two where we finished fifth, which made the weekend enjoyable.

"If the opportunity arose I would like to do a full season. It's a good championship and it's in a good part of the world basically, but Nascar comes first."

To some people V8 Supercar racing is regarded as similar to that of Nascar.

Many have tried to crack the peculiar American form of tin-top racing from around the world, but not everyone has succeeded.

"There's quite a big difference between the cars and ... there's a lot more money being spent in Nascar.

"At first I was worried I wouldn't be able to drive them [cars with a roof] because they are so different to open wheelers, but right from the start it was easy to get used to them."