25 years ago

Arthur Daley

On the 8th May Gilles Villeneuve was killed in qualifying at Zolder, Belgium. What a legend - what a talent. The cars aren't the same these days but boy could he drive.

BarryM3

What a legend... My favourite F1 driver of all time.

Any excuse for this photo

triple h

I am afraid i never saw Gilles Villeneuve, too young. I have seen pictures of the cars in that time and i don't like them. Michael Schumacher and Mika Hakkinen are the first two great racing drivers i know. oh, sorry, i guess Nigel Mansell ( did i spell it right) was the first i knew about.

BarryM3

I was 2 when he was killed... There is a host of books, DVDs and Videos available if you wanted to know about previous greats all the info is there.

Judging an F1 cars on its looks is ridiculous to be honest.... They are designed to be fast not beautiful...

The F1 cars of the late 70s and 80s were awesome machines.... 1400bhp, next to no aerodynamic downforce and less computing power than a calculator!! Mega!!!

BrianD3

I'm also too young to have seen him racing. But like a lot of people I have been reading about him and watching archive footage of him for many years. To be honest it's hard to know now just how good he was at this stage as there's been so much said and written about him and not all of it will be accurate. Also there is a tendency to idolise those who die before their time

But even taking all this into account, I think it's fair to say that he was one of the hardest charging, ballsiest, most exciting drivers of all time while at the same time being very fair and by all accounts a nice guy outside the car too.

I think Didier Pironi had huge balls as well BTW. There is a tendency to demonise the guy and almost blame him for Villeneuve's death.

As has been stated in the thread the cars at that time were beastly things with ground effects, turbo engines and the driver scarily close to the front of the car resulting in him being very vulnerable in a crash. 1982 was a bad year for crashes, not only were Villeneuve and Ricardo Paletti killed but Pironi was crippled and in Indycars Gordon Smiley had one of the most horrific fatal crashes ever seen in any motorsport event.

In general, around this time of the year (april/may) there seem to be many anniversaries of driver deaths. I always find myself thinking about these guys at this time of the year.

BarryM3

To illustrate BrianD3s point about how vulnerable the drivers were in those days just look at this picture of Villeneuves Ferrari sitting in the pits with just the fibreglass panels removed!!!

There was probably more 'complete' drivers than Villeneuve around at the time, I would agree but none were IMO as brave or as fast... He did things with those 'Pigs' of Ferraris that should not have been possible.

You always knew that he was giving it 100% commitment 100% of the time and that to me is what makes a great racing driver... the guy never settled for second place, sometimes granted, to his detriment.

The sport needs more of his type I think

BrianD3

I just found a website about motorsport fatalities, when and how they occured etc.. It may seem a bit morbid but at the same time it's like an online memorial to those who have died.
http://www.motorsportmemorial.org/

As I suspected, May has been a bad month for driver deaths. Drivers that died in May include:
Senna
Villeneuve
Henri Toivonen and Sergio Cresto
Neil Shanahan
Alberto Ascari
Lorenzo Bandini
Elio De Angelis
Scott Brayton
Gordon Smiley
Jovy Marcelo
Adam Petty

RIP

The Crunch

BrianD3 wrote:

To be honest it's hard to know now just how good he was at this stage as there's been so much said and written about him and not all of it will be accurate. Also there is a tendency to idolise those who die before their time

Echo that. Villeneuve was blindingly quick but blind to how the game really worked. Drivers had a lot more to do than just drive like lunatics and hope it all stayed together to the end. Lauda forever!

trendkill

When Gilles tested for McLaren, the boys were so amazed at his driving, they had never seen a driver spin and go off track so much... but what amazed them was that not once did he stall the engine... and in this, they knew that he would be a very very special driver..... he was too much of a nice guy for formula 1, he didnt have the baackstabbing attitude that the majority had. He gave the title to Jody Scheckter because he felt that his time would come soon enough... and thats why Pirioni pissed him off so much in Imola. the same happened to another F1 driver in the fifties, a guy named Peter Collins, team mate of Fangio, at monza Fangio's car broke down, effectively the world championship gone lost to his team mate;, Collins pulled into the pits and gave him his car.. knowing that he would have other chances of winning the world championship.. unfortunately he died the following year..... thats true sportsmanship, unseen in these days of racing!

Motormouth

The Crunch wrote:

Echo that. Villeneuve was blindingly quick but blind to how the game really worked. Drivers had a lot more to do than just drive like lunatics and hope it all stayed together to the end. Lauda forever!

Lauda?? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............
Great man to turn the boost down and save juice in the turbo era.
Like watching paint dry though.;)

Andrewf20

I saw his accident on youtube. Pretty savage looking.

BarryM3

Lauda??
Was he not some airline owner who went racing to earn a few quid to buy a new Boeing or similar??

jmayo

Sempra Gilles.

Just found this thread.

Did anybody here ever catch the race in the rain in Montreal in 81, where he drove the car around with broken front wing sticking up before it eventually fell off.
I think he finished 3rd.

Either that or his battle with René Arnoux in the last laps of the 1979 French Grand Prix at the Dijon circuit.
One of the best piceces of driving and deuls ever in F1.

For anybody interested in F1 they should watch either of those and you will see what F1 has been missing over last decade or so.

At one Watkins Glen 1979 practice session in rain, he set time 9 secs faster than the rest.

He was one of the greatest natural talents to have been in the sport and but for his sense of decency he could have beaten Jody Scheckter for title.
Pity Pironi didn't have half the decency of Gilles and wasn't a little backstabbing pri**.
Guest what goes around comes around and he met his end powerboat racing.

Actually Lauda was a damm good driver that came back from horrific accident. And if it wasn't for that crash Hunt would not have won his championship.