HOT PROPERTY
First he was going to Mclaren , they said . Then to Benetton-Renault . How he’s
staying put . Matt Bishop unravels the rationale behind Jacques Villeneuve’s strategic
thinking , and explains why he is still as good as it gets.
di Matt Bishop
They watched and waited – "they" being Giancarlo
Fisichella and Alexander Wurz and Jenson Button and Pedro de la Rosa and Olivier
Panis and anyone and everyone who felt , rightly or wrongly , that he might be
in line to gobble up one of the crumbs about to fall from Jacques Villeneuve’s
table . This year’s heavy scorers – at Mclaren and Ferrari – were staying put
. The 2000 silly season , as a result , was all about one man .
It’s easy to see why . Despite not yet having been provided with a winning car
from the BAR-Reynard-Honda package , Villeneuve has this year driven as hard and
as fast as Michael Schumacher , Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard – and faster
and harder than anyone else . It’s difficult to stay motivated in such conditions
, as Eddie Irvine is proving at Jaguar ; yet the Canadian has always been there
– his brilliant starts, bold use of track space and creative race strategies making
up for his car’s lack of inherent downforce .
He enjoys his down time , but his professional life is focused on racing . He’s
often criticized for his reluctance to carry out more than a few days of sponsorship
work per year , or for imposing a strict limit on the number of press interviews
he holds over a race weekend . Truth be told , others envy him : he minimizes
extraneous commitments to keep his approach to racing – the details of his job
in the cockpit – uncluttered .
A good example is his system on the starting grid . Partly because he wears very
loose-fitting overalls (he likes to have as much freedom of movement as possible
, regardless of how he looks alongside others , more neatly tailored), he takes
a long time to get settled into the car . He tightens a seatbelt here , loosens
one there . He does so in the relative quiet of the BAR garage , in the shade
, away from the spotlight .
On the grid , therefore , he remains strapped in . He has found his comfort zone
and there he will stay . Before the Canadian GP , by contrast , Coulthard climbed
from his Mclaren and spoke to four TV crews . He returned to the cockpit , rushing
slightly , then stalled his engine . Now , his is limiting the number of grid
interviews that he conducts to two . Jacques’ scintillating starts have been one
of the main talking points of the first half of the 2000 season . He has needed
them ; once running in echelon , he has invariably had to drive a defensive race
– as he did against Michael Schumacher at Silverstone , against Mika Salo in Melbourne
and , despite a major brake problem , against Ralf Schumacher at Magny-Cours .
He appears to expect this going in . He tends to take wing off before the race
, sure in the knowledge that he’ll pass more than a couple of cars before the
first corner . And , given the nature of today’s regulations (which dictate that
overtaking is not something you can ever realistically factor in your tactics)
, he works his strategy around being quick on the straights . When he was leading
Salo in Melbourne , he was in constant communication with his race engineer ,
Jock Clear , wanting to know where the Sauber was quicker and therefore how to
adjust his driving style accordingly . Such ploys are typical of the man ; he
learned in Indycars how to talk on the radio without compromising his driving
, and he alone uses it to it’s maximum in Formula 1 . Credit is due , too , to
Clear ; spontaneously , and because he knows Jacques so well , he has the ability
to distil and pass on exactly the information his driver requires . Why , though
, has Villeneuve out-started every other driver this year ? Obviously , BAR will
not reveal their trade secrets – but it’s likely that Honda’s engine mapping technology
is , shall we say , state-of-the-art . Clearly , also , he practices a lot , but
then so do virtually all the rest . Undoubtedly , he has more feel and better
reflexes than many of his peers . But is he that much better in these areas than
, say , Schumacher or Hakkinen ? No , what he has done is carefully dissect every
part of the start procedure – dissect it , perfect it , analyse it . The result
is there for everyone to see .
He uses only a hand-clutch . As on most other cars , it’s mounted on the left-hand
side of the steering wheel . It takes the form of a spring-loaded lever . Squeeze
it and you disengage the clutch . Release it -–gradually – and the clutch bites
.
Drivers will tell you that it’s difficult to simulate with your left hand the
sensitivity of your left foot , which is why so many spend time practicing their
starts . On top of that , the left hand must these days also be attuned to changing
down the gears with a ‘paddle’ , mounted very near , and slightly above , the
clutch lever . The upchange paddle is usually mounted behind the right-hand side
of the steering wheel .
Jacques has a different system . He is able to change the gears up and down on
one paddle , mounted on the right . He flicks it towards him to change up , away
from him to change down . His left hand only has one job to do – to release the
clutch at exactly the right moment , with exactly the right force . So critical
is this movement that he wants nothing to compromise it . Another aspect of the
start is the use of the brakes . Many keep their left foot on the brake pedal
while they edge out on the clutch ; they then jab the throttle and release the
brakes as the red lights go out . Again , Villeneuve appears to be different .
We believe he has a handbrake button mounted on the right-hand side of the steering
wheel , against which he holds the car as the red lights start to glow . There
are plenty out there who will say that a handbrake is no advantage when you are
able to brake with your left foot – but how many of them , we wonder , have worked
the back-to-back comparison ? There is something very immediate about pressing
a button that a rapid move on the foot cannot match .
Finally , Jacques drives with a very , very small throttle movement . This minimises
fuss on the footwell , is in theory faster (he can progress from one throttle
position to another in a shorter time , with less ‘travel’) and may enable him
always to find just the right revs off the line . It is also possible that the
latest generation of Honda has sufficient mid-range torque for BAR to run a slightly
longer first gear then their nearest rivals , minimising wheelspin and delaying
the first change . Alternatively , the team may take the risk of running a slightly
longer first gear than they would if they were qualifying at the front because
their race , at the moment , is not against the Ferraris and the Mclarens but
against the midfield mass . In that context , it is worth (slightly) compromising
the overall performance of the car if the reward for that is four gained positions
before the first corner . The start , of course , is only the start . Overall
, Jacques drives with the verve of someone who loves every aspect of his craft
. Few will forget his perfectly-controlled 360 degree spin on Saturday in Austria
. The on-board camera showed him slicing and correcting his way through the preceding
corners , then charging for the apex grass as he approached the finishing straight
. Suddenly , the back end snapped sideways . He locked the brakes , flicked the
steering wheel , released the brakes as the car reached 180 degrees , flicked
the nose around – and carried on . In the media centre , the crowd cheered .
Equally , he has the ability to dissolve miniscule jinks on the steering wheel
and throttle into an overall vision of smoothness and flow . He drives like Hakkinen
in the sense that he brakes very late , turns in a geometrical apex using throttle
and steering to balance the car , and lives with oversteer on the exit . He tends
to use more kerb than Hakkinen – on the apex and the exit ; he alone has the magical
ability to make kerb-hopping look like ballet .
No surprise , then , that he has been on many team principals’ shortlists over
the past few months . He spoke at length to Benetton’s Flavio Briatore , who confirmed
in Austria that the driver’s asking price was in the region of seven million .
In the end , though , he was always most likely to stay at BAR-Honda . They are
a team in which he has invested time and immense effort , and now , with the input
of the Japanese manufacturer , it’s beginning to come together . He might have
achieved better results at Benetton-Renault , although it’s difficult to imagine
Renault building a significantly better powerplant than Honda ; but the racing
systems , and the management philosophy , would be different from those with which
he has become accustomed . For all BAR’s problems over the past 18 months one
of the great positives has been their ability to work around him and his list
of priorities .
Short of Mclaren (where there is no vacancy) and Ferrari (likewise – even if Schumacher
would except him as a team-mate) , BAR-Honda was therefore his best option . Right
now , the team have developed into regular points scorers and it’s probable that
Jordan’s upgrade to full Honda power next season will have a positive knock-on
effect . Honda will not overtly pass information from Jordan to BAR , or vice
versa , but the two teams’ performance standards , through direct competition
, will undoubtedly rise .
Jacques Villeneuve remains a revel , remains his own man , and F1 is the better
for it . Michael Schumacher aside , no one has a stronger , more defined image
. He vehemently protects his private life – his music , his computer games , his
cars , his boats , his planes – and now , with Dannii Minogue by his side , he
has never been more content .
Except that he wants , and needs , to win again . Because it’s very clear that
he is better now than he was in 1997 , when he took the world championship and
last won a GP . His has made some mistakes – spinning out of a podium place at
Monza in ‘98 springs to mind – and he has had to start afresh with an all-new
team . The growing pains are over , though . Very soon he may well be back where
he belongs – racing wheel-to-wheel with the Mclaren and the Ferrari drivers ,
spraying Mumm with the best of them . Wait and watch .