What does Jacques Villeneuve really want?

So now Jacques Villeneuve is telling journalists in Australia that the Australian V8 Supercar Series is just peachy and he wouldn’t mind moving his family there and driving in it full-time.

I wonder if Jacques has any idea what he really wants.

One day, it’s Formula One. He can’t wait to get back into that series as a driver. Or else, he would – with partners – be really interested in buying an F1 team.

The next day it’s NASCAR. He’s working on deals to do some driving because he’d really like to be in that series full-time.

Now he’s in Australia with a whole bunch of other international drivers – Dario Franchitti, Alex Tagliani, Helio Castroneves and others from IndyCar, ex-F1 and Champ Car star Sebastien Bourdais (the organizers missed a real bet there by not inviting Paul Tracy . . . ) and others – to race the V8 cars this weekend at Surfer’s Paradise, where they used to hold the Indy car race.

Villeneuve told the Sydney Daily Telegraph that, “I would love to come and race here because it is such a great place. I wouldn't mind coming and doing it full-time because it could be a lot of fun."

He told the paper that the reason he’d prefer to do the series full-time rather than just drive one-offs is because Australia “is a long way to come and I have two little boys and you can't just leave for a month or two. It is much better to come and do it full-time and that is what I would do.”

Of course, he might also have just been parroting the usual line that F1 drivers use when interviewed by journalists in whatever country they’re in.

“This (insert name of country) is every driver’s favourite Grand Prix,” they’ll say. “The circuit is really challenging and the ambience is amazing. We can hardly wait to come back every year.”

So maybe that’s what Jacques was doing. Making the journos feel good.

Or, maybe he was serious.

But I don’t think so. The V8 cars might be big Down Under, but not anywhere else and for a guy like JV who thrives on being in the spotlight, there are better places to be.

Comments

[John B]

Of the "stock car" racing I've seen on TV, I would place the Australian V8 Supercars at the top, DTM (German Touring Car Masters) next and NASCAR at the very bottom for sheer excitement and relevance to current technology. Too bad this doesn't jibe with worldwide commercial viability.