Alonso wants more respect between drivers

On May 8, 1982, at the Zolder circuit, one of Formula One’s brightest stars was extinguished with the death of Gilles Villeneuve. Thirty years later, Scuderia Ferrari commemorated this sad anniversary by offering Jacques Villeneuve the opportunity to drive the Ferrari 312 T4 that his father drove during the 1979 season. Witnessing the return of a Villeneuve at the wheel of a car marked with the Prancing Horse, Fernando Alonso reflects on this fantastic day in the columns of his official blog: Gilles [Villeneuve] is a legendary figure for everyone, at Maranello and across the world, and I think it must have been fantastic for Jacques [Villeneuve] to drive this wonderful car. What I know about the father comes only from films, and indeed, what I remember best is the duel with Arnoux, in Dijon, while driving the same car that was on the track on Tuesday.

This legendary duel [the video of which you can find below] is often presented as one of the most spectacular in the history of Formula One, as well as one of the toughest, with both the Frenchman and the Canadian not hesitating to elbow each other. In an interview with TVA Sports, René Arnoux reflects on this epic duel: Personally, with great humility and with a deep respect for Gilles, this fight could only take place between him and me. From the moment we had our wheels interlocked and at speeds where, in Dijon, we were going over 200km/h in some areas, you must first, in life, know each other very well, appreciate and love each other greatly, and have total trust in the other. I knew Gilles wouldn’t stop the duel and he knew I would do exactly the same, which slightly reduced the danger, because when you have the wheels completely interlocked – we still touched seven times -, if the wheels touch, it’s immediate take-off and it becomes dangerous. And so we had this respect for one another, this faith in each other and then this determination – even though we weren’t fighting for first place that day – to gain the upper hand on the other. [After the race] everyone thought it would end in a boxing match between him and me, and when we got on the podium, we shook hands and burst out laughing. But precisely, people didn’t know about this friendship we had, strong and unshakeable. We immediately took it with a smile: we battled until the checkered flag and afterwards we probably laughed each in our own car.

Respect, precisely, Fernando Alonso today regretfully judges that there is a lack of it among Formula One drivers: Unfortunately, nowadays, we no longer witness that kind of fight because there are more obstacles; the cars are today dominated by aerodynamics and this type of maneuver is no longer possible. Moreover, there was definitely more respect at that time than there is now among us drivers, partly because they knew that in those cars, they were risking their lives, explains the Spaniard who yet gave the example of the immense respect drivers could have when Mark Webber passed him, in 2011, at the Eau Rouge corner.

« I don’t mean to say that today we are doing things poorly, but I believe that there is no longer the mutual respect, at least not among everyone, that there was in the past. This is a problem that goes back a long way, to the junior categories, and I think the time has come to try to address it » continued the Spaniard, likely in response to Nico Rosberg’s maneuvers in Bahrain, which had left him rather angry.

The native of Oviedo also shared that he was happy to reunite with Jacques Villeneuve, with whom he had teamed up in 2004 and who allowed him to expand his personal helmet collection: « I think Jacques was happy to be here in Maranello: for the first time, he was able to wear the red suit with the Ferrari badge and his name embroidered on it. We are friends, and it was nice to see him again. We were teammates, even if it was only for a few races in 2004, and it went well with him. He is a very professional and sincere driver. It was also an opportunity to expand the collection of helmets from my teammates as Jacques gave me one of his from the Sauber era. »

The commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Gilles Villeneuve’s passing was in any case an opportunity for the Spaniard to once again measure the weight of history at Maranello: « It was great to see many mechanics from that era, clearly happy to see a Villeneuve on track again. It was yet another episode that made me understand how special Ferrari’s history is, the history of a team with an incredible tradition that still looks towards the future. »