The ultimate racer

Gilles Villeneuve has climbed out of his stricken Ferrari 126CK and looks for damage on his car, at the 1981 Caesars Palace Grand Prix held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Nevertheless, he has qualified his bulky 126CK in third, just behind the Williams drivers Reutemann (on pole) and Jones.

Villeneuve, one of the fastest racers in F1 history, did miracles in his heavy 126CK with wins at Monaco and Jarama, was much faster in 1981 than his highly rated team mate, like here in Las Vegas where he out-qualified Didier Pironi by over 1.5 seconds.

But his quest for the ultimate capabilities and limits of his car, led him to sometimes exceed these limits… like here-below at the Canadian Grand Prix, but fast he was, and so passionate of racing in red. The ultimate racer, Villeneuve once declared: “If someone said to me that you can have three wishes, my first would have been to get into racing, my second to be in Formula 1, my third to drive for Ferrari.”