Jacques Villeneuve

Canadian racecar driver

From Indianapolis to the 1997 title

Jacques Villeneuve arrived in Formula 1 as the reigning IndyCar champion and won the world title with Williams in only his second season.

Jacques Villeneuve was born in Saint Jean sur Richelieu, Quebec, on 9 April 1971. He started racing in Italy as a teenager, moved on to Italian Formula Three and the Toyota Atlantic series, and then went to Championship Auto Racing Teams with Forsythe/Green Racing in 1994. A year later, with the renamed Team Green, he won the Indianapolis 500 and the IndyCar championship.

Williams brought him to Formula 1 for 1996. He started his first race, in Australia, from pole position, won four times that season, and finished runner up to teammate Damon Hill, the first rookie to place second in the championship. In 1997 he won seven races and fought Michael Schumacher all year, beating him at the final round at Jerez to become the first world champion from Canada.

The Williams lost its edge in 1998, though he still collected two podiums. He then joined the new British American Racing team for 1999, where results were modest, with two more podiums in 2001 as the high point. After BAR he made brief appearances for Renault at the end of 2004, raced for Sauber in 2005 and stayed when the team became BMW Sauber, leaving partway through 2006.

His Formula 1 career ended with 163 starts, 11 wins, 13 pole positions, 9 fastest laps and 23 podiums. He went on to race sports cars, finishing second at Le Mans in 2008 with Peugeot and winning the 1000 km of Spa that year, and he also tried NASCAR and touring cars.

1 world titles, 11 wins, 13 pole positions, 163 starts.

Teams

Victories

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