Jacques Villeneuve was only 13 when he sought his mother’s permission to follow in the footsteps of his father and aspire for a career in motor racing. His father, Giles, had been killed two years previously on the race track during a qualifying session for the Belgian Grand Prix in Zolder in 1982, following a collision with Jochen Mass. His mother promised that she would allow him to drive a kart if he could brush up on his weakest subject in school, mathematics.
Young Jacques took his mother’s words to heart and worked on his math skills to her satisfaction. True to her promise, mom Joann allowed him to drive a 100 cc kart in Imola the following year, when he was 14, to kick-start a career that would make her son the only Canadian Formula One World Championships drivers’ champion.
Jacques career was structured and his climb gradual from that point. He made his Formula Three debut in 1989 and had three uneventful, unsuccessful years, but his graph started to soar once he moved to IndyCar in 1994.
In 1996, he signed a two-year contract with Williams to drive in the Formula One circuit, taking the pole on his debut in Australia and coming home second in his first F-1 race. In his rookie season, he won four races and finished second behind Damon Hill, after being forced to retire in the season’s final GP in Suzuka, which he entered trailing Hill by nine points.
The following year, though, he wasn’t to be denied again. Like a year back, the title race was wide open going into the final race, the European Grand Prix in Jerez, Spain. Michael Schumacher led Jacques by one point, but this time, the Canadian held his own. On this day in 1997, he finished third in the race despite a damaged side-pod after a collision with Schumacher. The great German was forced to retire, Jacques came in third and was crowned champion. After an investigation, the FIA, the sport’s governing body, concluded that Schumacher had deliberately caused the collision, and disqualified the German from the Championship. By then, Jacques had already been crowned the king, his was no victory by default.
