JV: Poor reliability is ruining my season

Villeneuve's only points haul of the season was sixth place in Brazil, but he told autosport.com that poor reliability elsewhere is "the story of the season".

"We've had four mechanical failures in six races," he said. "We'll just have to keep working on it, and hopefully at one race the problems will stop."

Villeneuve pointed out that Sunday's Austrian Grand Prix was a missed opportunity for him to add to Jenson Button's excellent fourth place at the A1-Ring. Villeneuve suffered electrical problems that robbed him of his pit lane speed limiter and anti-stall, which delayed him in the pits and he finished the race a lap down.

"It will be difficult to get a car as good as this in race trim," rued Villeneuve. "The car was really great. We keep getting a really good set-up for the race, and we give up a bit in qualy, which I'm happy to do, but we need to stop having problems."