Past Experience No Help, Says Villeneuve

Jacques Villeneuve said on Thursday his past experience of driving at the Indianapolis Speedway would not help his chances of scoring championship points in Sunday's U.S. Grand Prix.

Villeneuve, the 1997 Formula One World Champion, won the prestigious Indianapolis 500 endurance race in 1995 but with the track having been remodelled to host the 15th round of the Formula One World Championship, the Canadian said he would not have much of an advantage.

"I'm not sure the experience will help a lot," said Villeneuve. "We'll be using turn one the wrong way round, so I'll have to remember not to turn left but to turn right. I have only seen the new track from a bird's eye view from a plane.

"But it was a great feeling to win here... the only thing you hear is that one race (the Indy 500) and how important it is."

Villeneuve said that he planned to survey the track by foot or scooter before the first practice sessions on Friday.

"We only have two hours on Friday to learn the track. The best thing to do is try and walk it or go round it on a scooter, just to have a visual idea of where the track is, where the breaking markers are or when it turns left or right," he said.

"That's important, just to have a memory of it so you don't have to learn that on Friday, because you don't have that much time."

The race weekend is a 250,000 sell-out and Villeneuve is aware that the home crowd will be desperately hoping for an exciting race as Formula One returns to the United States for the first time since 1991 in Phoenix.

"Whenever there's a boring race it doesn't seem to bother Europe," he said. "Europeans can look at the technology and they have grown up with it so they can understand what's happening on the race track.

"I'm not sure how that would go down here if we have a boring race. I think because it's Indianapolis, the fans that come here would come to any race at the Speedway. But it's a great opportunity for them to see Formula One racing."