F1 champion reveals he wouldn't have won title had his father still been alive

Jacques Villeneuve sits in his Williams car from 1996 — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

F1 champion reveals he wouldn't have won title had his father still been alive

F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve reflected honestly

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Thursday 18 December 2025 10:56 Updated: 11:16

F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve delivered an honest account about how he responded to the death of his father and F1 legend Gilles Villeneuve.

Villeneuve Sr cemented his status in F1 history over the six seasons he competed, claiming six wins and finishing second in the 1979 championship with Ferrari.

Enzo Ferrari regarded Villeneuve with respect and adoration, but F1 was deprived of a champion when, at the 1982 Belgian GP, Villeneuve died as the result of a collision with Jochen Mass.

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His son Jacques Villeneuve would go on to win an F1 title of his own in 1997, and the Canadian driver recently opened up about his father's death on an episode of the High Performance podcast.

When host Jake Humphrey talked about previous guests and the traumas they experienced, he asked Villeneuve whether he would be an F1 world champion if he had not experienced the traumas in his past.

Gilles Villeneuve is Jacques Villeneuve's father

Villeneuve discusses his father's death

Villeneuve explained: "Oh, I wouldn't be. I definitely wouldn't be. And it's not a question of talent. It's up here [points to head], how you approach situation, how you react, your gut feeling, and that controls a big part of your life.

"And the decision making when you don't have time to think about it, when you're that hunter and you have to pounce, you don't have time to think it has to be natural.

"But the thing is, yeah, okay, we call it trauma, but I don't see it as trauma, because it made me who I am today. I don't somehow see almost anything as a negative memory, which is maybe what is a help, I've never spent any of my life even my youth, feeling sorry or sad for myself about having lost my dad and so on and so on.

"Everything was a construction in what was happening tomorrow, and that's how I've led all my life, but not by decision, just naturally. That's how it's happened."

Villeneuve then referred to four-time world champion Max Verstappen and his upbringing, claiming his background made him stronger.

"Max, the way he grew up, the way he got into racing, you know, it was make or break. It might not be the best way or the easiest way to raise a kid. And most kids would be destroyed by that, it made him stronger," he continued.

“For me I guess it's my dad's passing really changed me where on that minute I went from a crybaby to someone super strong for some reason.

“Then I went to boarding school so away from family, away from everything… for me that was very constructive.”

F1 Jacques Villeneuve Gilles Villeneuve