Jacques Villeneuve's arrival in Formula One inevitably drew an immediate comparison with his legendary father the mercurial Gilles Villeneuve. Jacques came to F1 on the back of success in CART where he won the Championship in 1995, a year in which he also won the Indianapolis 500. He won the Formula 1 drivers title in 1997 driving for Williams making him only the third driver in the history of the sport alongside Mario Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi to achieve this feat. Villeneuve joined the Williams team in 1996 driving alongside Damon Hill and gave Hill a good run for his money in his championship year, with the title battle going down to the wire at the last race of the season. Hill was replaced by Heinz Harald Frentzen at Williams in 1997 but it was to be Villeneuve's year. It was to be an illustrious year and Jacques took 7 wins and 10 pole positions but still had a batlle for the title at the last race of the season with Michael Schumacher. After a dubious move by Schumacher who pulled over into the side of Villeneuve ending on this occasion with the German driver coming off worst and retiring leaving Villeneuve to carry on to Championship glory. Jacques moved on to the newly formed BAR (British-American Racing) team from 1999 through to 2003. It was generally an unproductive time for Villeneuve with the best results coming in 2001 with third place finishes in Spain and Germany. In 2004 he drove for Renault in China, Japan and Brazil but with little to show for his efforts and then moved on to Sauber for the 2005 and 2006 seasons. Once again Villeneuve did not enjoy great success and the best result was a 4th place in the 2005 San Marino GP. He retired from the sport after crashing out of the 2006 Hungarian GP and was replaced by the then up and coming Polish driver Robert Kubica.
Nationality - Canadian
Born 09 April 1971
First GP Australia 1996
Total GP's 165
Wins 11
Poles 13
Fastest laps 9
Total points 235
Teams
Williams
BAR
Sauber
Claim to fame
World Champion
1997
