Oliver White
Formula One’s 1997 World Champion – Jacques Villeneuve – will compete in this years Le Mans 24 Hour race with the Peugeot entrant, it was annoucned today. After leaving F1 and the BMW team behind him mid-2006, Villeneuve has been trying to strike a deal to race in the popular American racing series NASCAR. However, after many complications involving PR commitments and the roles of various people associated with Villeneuve (particularly his Manager and friend, Craig Pollock), the negotiations broke down and Villeneuve’s NASCAR dream faded fast. However, Jacques was present today at Peugeot’s launch in Paris, and was speaking of his aspirations to become the first driver to win the Indianapolis 500, the ChampCar title, the F1 title and the Le Mans 24 Hour event.
Le Mans is a mythical race, like Indianapolis. It will be a great experience and I think we should be extremely competitive. Jacques Villeneuve.
Jacques will be driving Peugeot’s diesel-powered 908 car and is talking of being competitive alongside his team mates and ex-F1 racers Pedro Lamy and Marc Gene. Lamy last drove a Minardi F1 car back in 1996, and Gene is currently a test driver for Ferrari alongside Luca Badoer.
Peugeot will also enter a second team consisting of multiple ChampCar champion Sebastian Bourdais – who recently tested for Scuderia Toro Rosso – and Stephane Sarrazin and Nicolas Minassian.
I just hope his Pug diesel is more reliable than mine 😉
Seriously though, it’s interesting having a diesel competing in the LeMans 24 hour event – might help change the perception of diesels as being slower and poorer performing than petrol cars – first the 350mph JCB record holder, now this… although were still a few years from LeMans being won by car running on used chip fat… now that’d make headlines!
Indeed, it is good to see companies trying new things and putting their reputation on the line for the sake of advancement. Oh, no, wait, Peugeot have a terrible reputation! 😉
It’ll be interesting to see how Jacques and Sebastian do. Jacques’s been hyping it a fair bit this week, and while he is talented, I’m not so sure he’ll be as competitive as he’d like.
Actually the last year 2006 the winner of the 24 hours of Le Mans was a Diesel powered too. It was from AUDI.
I have saw it. it was really amazing. Besides the other cars, as the alfa romeo or the porsche. The audi was silent and faster. Really a great experience.
Maybe the 908 will be so great as AUDI.
Thanks for the info cesar. I can personally vouch for Audi diesels, although I don’t think is as fast as the Le Mans car! 😉