Jacques Villeneuve has been shortchanged AGAIN !

[elsa!!]

I really wonder if there is a conspiracy within F1, to keep JV out last year and this year too!
Not many people know much about him because most F1 fans in T&T have only been introduced to the sport with the advent of SPEED channel/cable. But, long time fans will know that JV is a very skilled driver ! JV could rival Schumi if JV was in the Ferrari team!
JV came to F1 right after winning the CART driver's championship in the early 90's [94? 95? i have tuh check].
In his ROOKIE year at F1, JV won the driver's championship title !
That feat has yet to be repeated ! this man is a legend; his father Gilles drove and won for Ferrari in d ole' days [when i was in diapers, or not yet born? ].

If only one of the top 2 teams would give him a chance ! poor fella' jus' blight yes! [ like d ole' people love tuh say ]...

[kumar will say a prayer fuh JV!].

[Rory Phoulorie]

JV entered F1 in 1996 and came 2nd in the title chase. He won pole position in his first race and almost won the race itself (he damaged an oil line over a kerb and had to back off to preserve the car). His teammate at Williams that year, Damon Hill, won the title. He basically lost it when his wheel fell off after a pitstop. JV won the title in 1997 after Michael Schumacher tried to crash into him. MS came off the worse in that incident and JV won the championship (MS was stripped of all his point by the FIA for that incident).

His career went downhill fast when he left Willams at the end of 1998 for BAR. They never really produced a worthwhile car and even now when Honda has full control of the team, the same can still be said.

He most recently got the shaft by BMW in 2006 when they replaced him with Robert Kubica during the course of the 2006 season. JV was on par with Nick Heidfeld in terms of speed when they sacked him. BMW never really did want him in the team, it was more a contractual issue that kept him there, but I thought he was doing a good job. Anyway, he is out of F1 permanently now and that's that.

He is to drive the Le Mans 24 hour endurance race this year with Peugeot and, if, and that's a big if, if they win, he will be the only driver to have won the Indy 500, the CART Championship, the F1 Championship and the Le Mans 24 hour endurance race.

People have a problem with JV because he speaks his mind and does not conform to the normal "I would only say what the sponsors or the team wants me to say" type of driver. Look where that got Alain Prost in 1991, he said his Ferrari handled like a truck, and Ferrari told him that they no longer require his services at that race (mind you, he dragged them out of the gutter in 1990 to almost win the Driver's Championship). F1 is alot of politics, you have to say the right things, which are not necessarily the correct things, to keep your job.

Have a read of the following for some political correctness in F1:

Translating F1 PR Speak
Sunday February 25 2007

The Bahrain test is the most crucial test of the winter season and gives the strongest indication of how the teams are going to fare once they reach Melbourne next month. Some teams have been doing well and others have had nightmares, though you wouldn't know it by the press releases they put out.

"The car's a dog," "the aero package is pants" and "our test driver broke the only good development part" are phrases that never seem to come up in press releases. Everybody has a test that goes according to plan and everything is fine and dandy.

Logic tells us that when one teams puts in 120 laps on a day and another puts in 30 (or runs out of fire extinguishers - as was Toyota's case) that somebody's stretching the truth.

So, using our PR translation tool we have taken some of the genuine F1 press releases from Bahrain and provided the correct interpretation.

Both drivers were very focused for all three days.
We wouldn't let them near their Xbox 360s and we hid their mobile phones

We had a planned engine and gearbox change over lunchtime.
We had an unplanned and gearbox change over lunchtime

He completed the programme as planned which was good.
We rewrote the programme mid-afternoon when he'd only done 15 laps.

Xxxxxx (driver) went through our programme and found some interesting bits in terms of the car set-up.
Our driver managed to point out where the engineers had ****ed up and corrected them.

We will now have to analyse the work we have done this week and focus a little bit more on performance during the next test.
Man, we were slow.

As for xxxxxxx (test driver), it was a good chance to work with the race team. We have had some encouraging results this week, and we will look to build on them next week with Xxxxx and Xxxxxxx.
Xxxxx and Xxxxxxx had better be quicker than him.

It was interesting having two different compounds here.
Bridgestone said "here's the tyres - take them or leave them."

It has been a positive test for the team and we have continued to learn about the new Bridgestone Potenza tyres.
It'd be hard not to, driving around for 120 laps.

We have still got some fine-tuning to do on the car as the balance is not quite there yet, so next week's test will be important to help us resolve this before the season starts.
The engine's too far back on the chassis, and we haven't got a clue how to correct it.

It's been a good week in Bahrain for us and we have completed all the mileage that we had planned.
Though the plan was to do that mileage every day - and not in total.

We have been able to get a fuller understanding of the car and how it works in the warmer temperatures, including looking at areas such as the cooling system, which has been productive.
Surprisingly, the car works outside of Spain.

It was a chance for me to see the latest performance upgrades, and we have useful feedback from the developments that have been incorporated.
I couldn't tell if they made the car faster or not.

It was great to see some of the work that has been done at the Technology Centre on the car, as we progress towards Australia.
Something worked for a change.

My lap times were not at the top of the timesheets but that was more because we were concentrating on long runs rather than qualifying simulations.
And let's hope the team sponsors believe that.

The package is not yet optimised so we've got a lot of work to do to get the performance we want.
...we've managed to stop it from breaking down, though, so that $50m isn't totally down the toilet.

http://www.planet-f1.com/News/Story_Page/0,15909,3210_3262_1943089,00.html

[MG Man]

JV may have one a championship, but he does not have what it takes to be a consistent front runner. It is the same reason Damon Hillw as dropped by williams after winning the championship.....they just make too many mistakes and throw away huge points leads......compare them to Mansell, for example, who, even tho the stats indicates otherwise, is / was a brilliant driver who never had to struggle for a ride...he just had bad luck. Same could be said for Jean Alesi, Gerhard berger and others. HH Frentzen wasanother unlucky potential champion who got a raw deal from Jordan (Damn you Eddie)
_________________

I know it's so, for I told me so

[Rory Phoulorie]

MG Man, you would recall that HHF was in Williams with JV in 1997 when JV won the championship. I believe that HHF won one race compared to JV's seven (could have been 8 had he not gifted McLaren the first two positions in the last race for helping to protect him from Schumacher). When you read what Patrick Head had to say about JV's 1997 season, he indicated that JV basically made it difficult to win the championship because he didn't listen to Head's advice on car setup (JV also got excluded from one race because of a yellow flag infraction during practice). When you listen to JV on the same topic, he said that HHF used to listen intently to Head's advice and look where that got him.

You would also recall that Renault pulled out of F1 at the end of 1997, with Mechachrome taking over the duties of supplying the F1 engines to Williams, which basically meant little development of the 1997 Renault engine. His basically ended his career at the end of 1998 by leaving Williams for BAR. He had an offer from Renault, but they themselves, although producing a better car than BAR, were no front runner until around 2003 when they ditched the wide angle V10.

I long for the days when you could again see a Prost/Senna/Mansell/Piquet type battle (circa 1985/1986/1987).

[Plex]

[worksux101]

Disagree about Alesi...love the man but he just never was quick enough when he needed to be...or at least not doing thisconsistently enough to be a world champion...

JV is quite simply a prick...just like eddie irvine...both had great driving potential...both had terrible egos and thought they were God's gift to mankind...neither were consistent or composed enough to deserve the title...

Frentzen i'd put in the same boat as Alesi...a lil too 'professional' and uptight for my liking though...
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Eating meh Zauce doubles...

[elsa!!]

JV's biggest mistake was choosing $$$$$ and taking d dumb chance on BAR... that is the one thing that annoyed me about him: selling out, even though renault wanted him when they decided to return to F1, he still stayed in BAR, like ah fool; but he is a very talented man, though.

Eddie I. on d other hand, thought he was god's gift to women ... delusional eddie jensen button seems to be going down dat same pathway...

[Rory Phoulorie]