Villeneuve was every measure Senna's superior. Unfortunately there was never a chance to prove it.

@@wickedwarlock1 That's not false. However, he was dangerous for himself... Senna kept control on that point.

​​@@marsattacks7071Not at Suzuka he didn't. Or Portugal 88' for that matter.

​​​​​​​​​@@wickedwarlock1 Sorry I forgot to respond to your comment earlier, after reading the post of another Arrogant Senseless fan. You're right. Gilles was a superior driver compared to Senna. 1) Gilles never thought he was above the sport like Senna did, with unacceptable conduct of threatening his competitors. 2) therefore Gilles never behaved like some doucebag who thought he was above the sport like Senna did. 3) case in point... Never deliberately rammed another driver... and was a fair driver with others when he knew the game was lost. Gilles was never complained about like Arrogant Senseless was. He was considered a fair driver when he knew all hope was lost. Clearly exhibited at the 1979 Austrian GP when he gave way to not only Alan Jones (my hero) after Gilles invested himself in what is considered one of the best starts of F1 racing at that event - against the superior Williams & Renault-turbos. Which Senna never had to engage against during his tenure with McLaren.

+steve m Laffite's statement is true as I was standing next to him. god// I mean gilles was at one point 24 sec. quicker. burdine estep f1 artist.

+burdine estep - I was on turn 9 most of the weekend. I can still hear those beautiful V12's! Gilles showed that Hans Stuck wasn't the only boat racer in F1. That track was wet and so were we.

Who won the World Driving Championship in 1979? I loved Gilles with a passion, but geez you guys speak misty eyed emotional bullshit without facts.

what a silly "could of, would of" comment. if Alan Jones had just 5 retirements instead of 7 he would have won. Go see how many times Jones was leading or top 3 when his car broke. Then again if Ligier had not had their wheel failures, Laffite would have won .. how many bullshit should of, could of, scenerios do you want? Jaboullie was one of the best and fastest driver in 1979, had his Renault ever finished any races at all ... blah blah blah .. Anyway, Jones, Jaboullie and Laffite mostly had their cars fail under them, not their driving, Villeneuve made a driving mistake at Zandy all on his own.

@@markmark5269 Jones, Lafitte, Jabouille, how many of them are remembered as Gilles is? You will easily find the answer.

True

+White Christian Of course. Gilles the man!

Mr. Handsome stats doesn’t mean everything

@Mr. Handsome how is it the same era when he died 9 years before Schumi made his debut?

A Shell winning the constructors championship in 1979 by 38 points not a 'decent car' ?

+A Shell he had a decent car in 1978 and, above all, 1979

A Shell .....Amen

And but for 1L of fuel in Belgium or Team Orders at Monza he would have been WDC in it.

He was an amazing driver, brave as anyone could possibly be but make no mistake Senna is the greatest ever.

+Angel Man 1- tazio 2- gilles 3- jimmy.

+burdine estep I like!

burdine estep Yes!

@@burdineestep4224 Wow, unusual to see Tazio Nuvolari mentioned! Difficult to say but yes, 3 superhuman drivers along with Fangio ofc. Gilles, alas, never got close to showing the world his best unlike the others so it drifts into speculation. The mind boggles at what he may have achieved and how incredible it would have been watching him do it. Makes his unfortunate end even more upsetting. Try to even imagine how the 1980s would have looked if Gilles was there. Who knows.... but my heart cannot resist the potential that Gilles was the fastest human to drive an F1 car to this day.....

? So "terrible" Jody won the 1979 World Championship in it ...

I've seen them both drive in person many times. Gilles was the best!

I have seen them both, both were absolutely amazing, totally committed, totally motivated, warriors who never gave up, drivers with not only a technical talent superior to anyone else, but also the madness to conceive passes or maneuvres nobody else even conceived. By far my favorite drivers of modern F1. But Gilles was Gilles, in a very, very bad piece of crap car like the 126C in 1981 did things not even Ayrton Senna would have managed. I have never seen such a piece of crap driven so boldly and firmly as Gilles did in Monaco. He was a master (Monaco 1979, I saw him touch the rail at the turn lap after lap after lap. He would just slide on it oh so gently without damaging the car, just taking all the road he could take. Pure genius

damm if Villeneuve was still alive, we would have seen many many great battles of him vs Senna. That would have been absolutely entertaining to watch

+Karen Audrey Todd having been live at over 100 g.p. iv'e seen them both [ 1964 -present] mos def gilles.

Of course Burdine, you have seen Gilles Villenueve drive in Montreal. I saw you there hangin' out with "Smitty"!

The Ferrari was a flat-12 not a V12

crusherbmx Jacques retired a few months ago because he has cancer.

Cancer sucks.....but still, a few months ago?! Not a bad career!

Peart2112 he raced in a formula 1600 race at the montreal grand prix this year. Placed well

That's awesome!

+crusherbmx jacques L'oncle will be racing sleds again this winter

In Formula One, every driver should be a racer first. Period.

Number 27 in 1981 and 82

Yea but his drive at Canada '81 will always be one of his very best drives. Rainy weather and his front wing blocking his sight yet using peripheral vision to turn and vibration to remove the wing. He even finished 3rd.

Senna was #12 in 1988

In fact if you look at things properly, all of Gilles's performances were special. He never had the best of machinery apart from '79 (which was his first full year in F1, remember) so his results were not the best but he drove every lap with his heart and at the maximum the car would allow.

".never mind, he's just a Pironi's fan....". Or he's just a jerk.

Pironi was a superb driver

lol rof so true

Because they don't have drivers with balls like gilles or Ayrton or Nigel anymore, now they need a quarter mile runoff area in every direction and the Glen was not designed for computer controlled turbo DRS KERS bullshit cars, it's a real men circuit

lol

that's because today's formula one doesn't meet the tracks's standards... and what's wrong with texas? of all the new tracks, it's the best too bad they didn't add New Jersey to the calendar

+VabbbeDicaaa They built better tracks and cars because they got tired of watching our drivers die. See 'the killer years' regarding tracks. www.dailymotion.com/video/x14el38_grand-prix-the-killer-years-documentary_auto

+pj edwards I have gille's helmet tat on my left arm. close to my heart.did it the day he passed.also have the very last autograph he gave to a zolder pit lane official. prized .

I was at the Montreal race in 1978.After the race, they were so happy no one would let me pay for my own beer!

burdine estep Respect ✊🏻

There was never a connection from The Heel to the main straight at Watkins Glen. Greetings from New York state!

François Cevere crash?...so sad.

@@francoisbedard7394 Yes, I was a huge Cevert fan. Bad enough he died but wow what that crash did to him was beyond brutal. Poor guy. Very sad indeed.

found the full race here kzfaq.info/get/bejne/g7hjqq2V1a3WYas.html

What a great battle they had in Canada in 1979! Wheel to wheel stuff for the whole race. Even though I was pulling for Gilles, ( I am Canadian) I thought Jones put up a great and entertaining fight. He certainly earned my respect that day!

Yes. I wasn't around to see any of his races. And this footage proves that it's hard to get a gist for the drivers back then. Photos prove that he was a bit of a manic, and regardless of only 6 wins he was regarded high in f1 folklore. I think the season he died was the first year Ferrari had a turbo car. They were all putting out around 600bhp or so then, and continued to rise to around the mad 1200 or so bhp before they were banned in 88(or 87)

+j black Im a big villeneuve fan , but he was a bit of a maniac . ferrari just let him go crazy , doing crazy things . If he was with McLaren , or Williams , they would have controlled him , made him more focused on winning races , not just winning laps , burning up his tyres , ect. He would of won more than six races , and definetly a world championship .

+chopperking1122 you're right...but I doubt Villeneuve could have been tamed...that's the way he was made...at times brilliant, at times very reckless...that's why, personally, I can't rate him as one of the all-time greats

+j black 81 was the first year they ran a turbo car full time,

j black the story goes that villeneuve and his teamate didier pironi had a deal going at the 1982 san marino grand prix , whoever was in the lead on a certain lap , would take the flag . the ferraris were running one-two with villeneuve in the lead on that lap . pironi passed him , villeneuve re-passed , pironi passed , ect.ect . villeneuve thought " ah , hes just putting on a show " pironi re-passed and took the win . villeneuve was furious , . he vowed never to speak to pironi again . At the next race , the belgian GP . pironi was slightly faster in practice . In those days , qualifying wasnt done in a solitary five lap dash like today . everyone fanged around trying to get a time . some guys going fast , some guys cruising . they had qualifying tyres that only lasted two or three laps . villeneuve was still furious , he put on his last set of qualifying tyres , detirmed to better pironis time , off he goes , he came across a slower car , he wasnt gonna back off , the other driver pulled across , not expecting villeneuve to pass him on that side , but he did.....

Peter Franz I work in sports media today because of him and him alone. Aged 9, I started to read dozens of different annuals talking about the sport and almost always there was a reference to the great man - not Fangio, Clark, Ascari etc but always him. I'd never seen a picture of him, or footage just written word by many different journalists and I was blown away. He's a cult hero for the passion he showed and his relentless raw speed and complete lack of fear - proper brass balls. Remember, he had a shit box of a car for the majority of seasons he competed and look what he achieved. Flawed, absolutely, but he's in most peoples top ten for pure guts alone. He was a one off! And the sport will never see the likes of him ever again. It's subjective and the 'best ever' debate is childish and saved for uneducated narrow minded soccer fans with short-term memory, but this chap changed my life forever!

Gilles indeed earned fans around the world. I also exclusively read, not watched his rise through the ranks of Formula Atlantic to F1, and was lucky to see him at the USGP when it was in New York. I think you captured it well, he's more of a cult hero. He represented the "win or break" mentality lots of fans like. I'm even sympathetic to that approach, and as one F1 commentator put it "the world driving championship is in some ways, the worst thing to ever happen to grand prix racing." Meaning of course, the kind of "safe" driving where someone "third places" their way to a WDC is no fun for fans. But the WDC does matter of course, and to your other point, remember in the 5 seasons Gilles was with Ferrari they won 2 Constructor's Championships, finished second once, fifth another year, and a dismal 10th which is why everyone suggests he "drove shit boxes", but it's not true. It's a really dull statistic, but an important one: Gilles failed to finish races more often than every single one of his teammates. But, I agree, he was a thrilling guy, a good racing hero for anyone, and lists of "best of all time" are for amateurs.

Peter Franz that's why his all guts no glory approach gained him so many fans - a 'Steady Eddy' would be cast away to the confides of the F1 annuals, merely an afterthought for even the anoraks. He made plenty of mistakes - most notably v Pironi in Imola (1982) - when he ran wide near the end. He was human after all. Some think he's a deity and get wrapped up in the romance of it all but he knew only one way to drive and that was all out - to his own detriment in the end. Maybe in 82 he would've been champion but Pironi was hot on his tail - if only they finished that season it would be up there most definitely with the best. Also, the car was always quick and even when it looked sluggish, when cornering, he was unbelievable (Jarama 1981). That car was complete pants and yet he won twice that year. With four full seasons and six wins he's more fondly thought of than Sterling Moss for example - 16 wins. Sterling Moss was no slouch either. And Alain Prost the most reliable driver ever and the most underrated, IMO, would be held in higher regard if he had more of an apparent edge if everyone believed what they read. Like a musician's favourite musician - he's a drivers driver. Btw, I love Prost and hate people's moronic 'Senna fan-boy-esque' opinion of him. Prost, Gilles, Gendebien, Elford, P Rodriguez. Those guys were legends.

Peter Franz thoughts like this are the prime reason all of the people that have talked to you in their lives think of you as a complete moron

Well done Peter, a pretty good outline of the 'Gilles was the best' tag that people lay at his door. I can't understand why this opinion rules motor sport fans memory of Villeneuve. To be fair he did have good car control skills but to be fairer so did those he raced against in F1. His flaw ,as you called it, was his appalling racecraft. and inability to drive with any points scoring consistency. Motor racing is in reality quite boring from the viewers angle, so GV's 'spectacular' driving antics could be looked upon as refreshingly different. The flip side is contemporary drivers could have have been just as eye -catching if it were not for their eye on the longer greater prize. The greatest comparison to this is the 1979 WDC and GV's teammate Jody Scheckter. Scheckter came into F1 and quickly got the rep as being a bit crazy behind the wheel. Fittipaldi called for JS to be banned after the 1973 British GP pile up caused by JS. Jody didn't give a stuff about others opinion whether they were WDC or not, however (this has been remarked by JS himself in interviews) this attitude changed when JS witnessed the fatal crash of Francois Cevert at The Glen in '73. JS stopped at the accident to give assistance only to be greeted by the sight of Ceverts' badly mutilated remains. That day changed JS into a more thinking driver, something he used in '79 while capitalizing on the strengths of the Ferrari (reliability and the Michlein tyres) to win the WDC. The Michlien radial tyres where far superior to the Goodyear bias belted/cross ply, hence GVs' performance in the wet. This brings me to the thoughts I've had while watching GV in races, and a thought many may think controversial. It's something i've seen in other drivers but it's very rare. The thought is this: I think GV suffered from a mental condition (no not a disorder, there is a difference) in which he was unable to understand what could or would be the results/consequences of his actions, good or bad. This condition is very similar in behaviour to (but not the same as) a lack of fear. A lack of fear could be an advantage to a racing driver, but a lack of imagination is not. GV really should have been killed at the '77 Fuji GP. In an accident that was very similar to this fatal crash, GV tried to overtake Ronnie Peterson at the first corner in a late braking up-the-inside move that could only be regarded as ineptly stupid, GV ran into the back of RP and was lifted over the top of RP's Tyrrell, GV's Ferrari flipped, then cartwheeled into air going over the armco killing 2 japanese spectators. GV was left sitting in what was the remains of the 312, the tub! nothing else was attached. He escaped death only because the Ferrari didn't impact the ground on its roll over hoop and submerge into the soft ground. GV didn't learn a lesson from that incident as Scheckter had 4 years before, and roll hoop submerge killed him at Zolder 5 years on.

that is what it is like now... just don't run the busstop... where as Monza has crappy chicanes... and the Bus stop at Spa is brutal

Bryan Carey That's right....while the bus stop chicane was added at the end of the back straight in the early '90', the chicane shown at 3:22 in the middle of the esses has been removed. A little more runoff has been added here and there, but not much. Watkins Glen is still very much the same as it was, still very fast and dangerous.

todsimpson Fair enough, from a recent perspective. Compare the 1967 classic circuit ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Watkins_Glen_International_Track_Map-1960-1970.svg ) to what it is now ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Watkins_Glen_International_Track_Map.svg ). About 1/3 of the course is quite similar. The "long course" loop can be bypassed, but it wouldn't be for F1. It could be worse for sure, compare classic Silverstone to what it is now, that track character is destroyed. Stowe used to be immense, now it's a joke. Monza still feels like Monza to me, especially Parabolica. The massive old Spa couldn't survive, they did a great job keeping its essence but making it modern. La Source and Eau Rouge are the signatures of that track, same as they ever were.

they did the bus stop because people died there bro

No, it wasn't. F1's loss of Watkins Glen at that time proved to be one of its greatest ever losses. Just look at all the street races in the United States that followed in the 1980's. No other venue since has been as successful at holding the USGP than the Glen. If the race had been held earlier in the year, if the circuit had more and bigger run off areas, if security there had been better and if the organizers had more money, they could have run the race there for another 5 to 7 years. Granted, the circuit was and still is 4 hours from the nearest major city in every direction, but the circuit's atmosphere and it's ability to stage weekend long events like no other grand prix was a very good factor. The circuit is still more or less the same, other than a chicane at the end of Turn 5 and the Esses chicane removed. The Glen is still a fantastic place- everyone who has been there will say so.

hmdwgf 4 hours isn't far. That isn't the problem. The problem is it isn't an "FIA Grade 1" track so it isn't up to their (no balls) safety standards. So for that reason, I'm really glad they don't race at Watkins Glen anymore or else you wouldn't even recognize it.

chipattack912 That may have been the case... good point.

They had to leave, the organizers weren't competent and didn't know how to manage their money. Watkins Glen is one of the best tracks in the world and is nothing like the baby tracks they race on now. So leaving the Glen would have never been a good choice, if they had one.

chipattack912 The organizers were not very competent, no- competent in some areas, incompetent in others. But the real reason why the Glen was stripped of the US GP in May 1981 (8 months after the 1980 race there) was this: it wasn't a case of whether they could manage their money- they didn't foresee the security and crowd problems Watkins Glen would have in the 70's. Because Bernie Ecclestone had formed FOCA, he demanded more and more money from the organizers up to the point where they just couldn't afford the race anymore- and the crowd problems there gave Ecclestone all the ammunition he needed to persuade the teams that he was right in demanding the amount of money he wanted just to give FOCA the excuse of doing so just so he could prove to the F1 world how illegitimate and untrustworthy the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Corp. was at organizing the US GP there. I totally agree, Watkins Glen really is one of the best tracks in the world- there is nothing else like it and most F1 tracks today pale or even fail in comparison to that track.

Clarkson is a fool mind ;) Senna was far from spectacular every time, just not true. Gilles had very few opportunities also but even then there are several performances Senna couldn't even come close to. You compare a diamond to a stone sonny.

Well my vote for 90's-00's is no surprise at M Schumacher. 00's-present, feels a little bit tougher to choose. If it were just stats I guess Vettel makes sense. But I'm tempted to give it to Alonso. Just my thoughts, doesn't mean squat anyway :P

Matthew Sinclair Alonso is the better driver but Vettel might be able to develop a car better. Alonso did wonderful things with a bad car and Riciardo is already better then Vettel. As a pure driver. Vettel isn't the best.

I'm Canadian and always rate Gilles and Jacques higher than they deserve to be, but for sure Schumacher is next on the list, and I'm not a fan, I have just accepted that he was better than everybody else. Especially consider '96 -'99 when he didn't have the best car. After Schumacher I can't decide between Alonso, Hamilton and Vettel, it's a hard choice because they aren't my favourite drivers, I really want to say Button or Raikkonen.

crusherbmx Schumacher and Gilles raced in different eras. I love both pretty equally. Maybe Gilles had a worse car though.

The '96 Ferrari was pretty bad, Schumi still got 3 wins. I wasn't comparing him to Gilles, though, I meant to compare him to Jacques, and every other driver from '94 to '06...and as much as I hate to admit it, the truth is, Michael Schumacher was a better driver than Jacques Villeneuve...there, I said it, and it hurts...

You make me laugh, Senna always had a top level car, Villeneuve never had a competitive car, for those of us that saw them both drive back then, there is no question that Gilles was on a whole different level than Senna and everybody else. For that matter just look at what those who drove against both of them said, which is exactly what I just said... Senna was great, so was Schumacher, but neither were as good as Villeneuve, he was just quite simply the best ever, even Senna said this on numerous occasions...

Karen-Audrey .Todd what about 1979?

Karen-Audrey .Todd i was there,,50' tall rooster tails made visability = 0 near starting line asseen from behind(big bend) jilles driving ferreri not crap car

Tell me about Senna and Monaco, or Senna and Spa, look, im not saying gilles was a bad driver, he was one of the bests, but Senna made something different. Senna almost won at monaco with a very bar car, he made an incredible performance at estoril, they raced very different cars, we could see who was better.

***** Gilles was 11 seconds quicker in the 1979 3rd Practice at Watkins Glen - Only 6 cars took part in the session as it was held in torrential rain. Also, it was held a couple of hours before Qualifying. I am sure that if it had been a Qualifying session instead of a Practice session, we would have seen all the cars out, and all of those drivers would have "put it on the line" as is the norm in Qualifying, so it would have been closer. Gilles would still have had pole though :-) He really was special in the wet. Incidentally, both of his Biographies are worth reading, but the one By Gerald Donaldson is accurate and also they were friends, making it quite special. Incidentally, Juan Mendez is correct, Ayrton did nearly win the 1984 Monaco GP, he was actually 2nd but had caught the leader on the line as the race was red flagged. One more lap and he would have won. He also DID win in 1993 driving the MP4/8 Cosworth which was significantly slower that the FW15c and also slower than the B193 Benetton. In spite of this, his season was stellar, leading the Championship for several races, winning five and 2nd in the WDC.

how abou:t he was not even in this race?

Gilles ftw

Senna was great, but Gilles was magic...

Steve Stamopz noob

Luan Ramos just because you've seen Senna once, it doesn't mean you know everything about f1.

John Laquis Niki Lauder

Senna? Clark coulda beat him with his tractor.

SennaThe Best But Villeneuve The crazy fast and spectacular

_Aaaannndd?_