Gilles Villeneuve.
You wish you were here.
On September 12, 1975 David Gilmour with Pink Floyd presented to the world one of the most beautiful songs in the history of music. A unique dedication that today, 39 years later, I dedicate to Gilles Villeneuve.
That cursed 8 May 1982 is an open wound, a painful stake in everyone’s heart.
©Cahier Archive
The little red starter that Ferrari compared to Nuvolari, that little man all muscles and nerves that drove everyone crazy, from the stands to those at home. Falling in love with that little man was not impossible.
I wasn’t lucky enough to live the golden years of F1 where drivers were heroes, knights of risk, daring leaders of aspirated or turbocharged hearts, of little aerodynamics and lots of engine. The facts of Imola? Better to leave them there. The Ferraris had triumphed and that’s what mattered. But not for you. At Zolder there was much more to prove; to redeem the love of a lifetime, to fill a competitive hunger, from Saturday, with a set of tires that were not up to scratch. Paolo Scaramelli, in his travel diary, remembers that weekend as the worst. Coldness, nervousness, a race weekend that made it clear, since Friday, that nothing was the same as before. The struggle at home was palpable and inevitable.
©Cahier Archive
That lap that never ended left everyone breathless, that pole that stopped Gilles‘ crazy race out of the cockpit is the same that today lives in all of us fans, with Villeneuve fever, after all this time. If that seat had never come off, if those tight belts had been softer, if Joanna had been in Zolder too, maybe everything would have been different. Impossible to forget the tears on the commander’s face, impossible to forget that fatal gap to the right to overtake that March.
One lap to stay ahead of Pironi. Maybe that was exactly what was needed at Imola. Only one lap.
Salut Gilles
Motorsport is beautiful
Remembering Gilles Villeneuve, killed at Zolder #OnThisDay in ’82. Pic: one of his best wins, muscling his truck-ish Ferrari, turbo lag ’n’ all, through the streets of Monaco, to catch & pass the leader, Alan Jones, in his far nimbler Williams, 3 weeks shy of 40 years ago. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/McOe0d3r9u
— Matt Bishop (@TheBishF1) May 8, 2021
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