30 years ago today, we lost one of the greats

30 years ago today Gilles Villenueve was killed in an Accident at the track in Zolder Belgium.


Salut Gilles, May you rest in peace.

Never got to see one of my heroes drive live. Deserved a championship, if not more. Of all the DVDs I have seen of him, these moments are my personal favourite.


Driving that hard for 2nd place is perfect. He had the right mind-a true racer never gives up.


This is Villeneuves first win, and he did it in style. After damaging his front wing, the air beneath pushed the wing up so to make it almost impossible to drive. Most drivers would have gone to pits, Villeneuve would have soldiered on.

Milan655 wrote:
This is Villeneuves first win, and he did it in style. After damaging his front wing, the air beneath pushed the wing up so to make it almost impossible to drive. Most drivers would have gone to pits, Villeneuve would have soldiered on.

That was actually the 1981 Canadian GP, where Villeneuve finished 3rd. Not that it makes it less impressive, though - very few drivers would've soldiered on like Villeneuve did.


Arguably Villeneuve's greatest victory, where he held up 4 faster cars by using the greater power of his Ferrari to overcome its weakness in the corners. To quote Harvey Postlethwaite, who was the technical director of Ferrari at the time, "That car...had literally one quarter of the downforce that, say Williams or Brabham had. It had a power advantage over the Cosworths for sure, but it also had massive throttle lag at that time. In terms of sheer ability I think Gilles was on a different plane to the other drivers. To win those races, the 1981 GPs at Monaco and Jarama — on tight circuits — was quite out of this world. I know how bad that car was." (Thanks to Wikipedia for the quote)

Oops, I had originally chosen the Montreal 78 race, but forgot to change it. In any case, I thought it was in 1980, I was wrong!

http://wtf1.co.uk/top-ten-kick-ass-gilles-villeneuve-moments/

That's also a great list of his acts.