The Villeneuve/Pironi feud

Everyone was staggered when Didier Pironi appeared in the lead on the last lap - and none more so than Gilles. As they completed their slowing down lap, Villeneuve rocketed his Ferrari into the inspection area, flung his belts off, stepped out and strode away. There was never a glance at Pironi, nor any question of joining him for the lap of honour. Briefly they stood together on the rostrum, but there was no handshake, no eye contact, nothing.

There is no more correct or honourable man in motor racing than Gilles, and I was puzzled by this display of apparent petulance. It seemed wholly out of character. "Yes," beamed Pironi, "I am very happy to win for Ferrari in Italy. Every Ferrari driver dreams of it..." Villeneuve, in the meantime, was away, walking quickly to his new Agusta helicopter, parked on the infield.

A couple of days later, I rang him. "I left because otherwise I would have said some bad things," he said. "He was there, looking like the hero who won the race, and I looked like the spoiled bastard who sulked. I knew it would look like that, but still I thought it was better to get away..."

The explosive anger of Sunday was gone now. Villeneuve spoke in a calm, detached, manner, but still there was no doubting the resolve in his voice. Had he discussed the race with Pironi? "No," came the answer. "I haven't said a word to him, and I'm not going to again - ever..." Was he serious? "Absolutely. I have declared war. I'll do my own thing in future. It's war. Absolutely war..."

So how had everything gone wrong?

"I'll tell you the facts," he replied, "and leave you to decide. First of all - before the race even started - we knew we were extremely marginal on fuel. Forghieri told us to save fuel as much as we could. In fact, the cars were topped up on the grid.

"So, for three - quarters of the race we were fighting with Arnoux, lapping at around 1m35.5s. When Rene blew up, I took the lead, and we got a 'slow' sign from the pits. It is just not true that there are no team orders at Ferrari. You get a 'slow' sign, and that means 'hold position.' That has been the case ever since I have been there.

"Let me remind you of a bit of history. At Kyalami in '79, I stopped to change from wets to slicks, and lost the lead to Scheckter, who had started on slicks. I caught him again, and he was holding me up because his tyres were shot, but I never tried to pass him. Finally, he had to go in for new tyres, and then I took the lead. And do you remember Monza the same year? I sat behind Jody the whole way, knowing that this was my last chance to beat him for the World Championship. I 'oped like 'ell he would break! But I never thought of breaking my word. I know all about team orders at Ferrari.

"Imola was going to be my race, because I was in front of Pironi when Arnoux dropped out. If it had been the other way round, tough luck for me. I can tell you, and I know it to be true, that I would not have tried to take it away from him, and I expected the same from him. Jesus, we've been living together at Ferrari for the last year and a half. I thought I knew the guy...

"As soon as the Renault was out, I relaxed, slowed the pace. The only thing in my head was making the fuel last. Pironi had dropped back, and that let him catch up. I made a mistake coming out of a corner, and he passed me. I wasn't worried; I figured he would lead for a couple of laps, then give it back. Maybe he wanted to put on a show for the public, impress the fans. OK, fine. But what did worry me a little was that he was going so quickly, which meant that I had to go quickly, too. How can you obey a 'slow' sign if your team mate doesn't? So I got back in front on lap 49 and slowed things down again.

"Can you imagine a scene where two Ferraris, leading a race in Italy, run out of fuel on the last lap? That was the only thought in my head. So I lapped in 1m37, 1m38, for three laps, and then he passes me again, and now we're back in the 35s. I thought it was bloody stupid.

"Then, on lap 59, I passed him again on the approach to Tosa. I thought he lifted a little, but he says he had a small engine problem. Whatever it was, I got by, and even at that stage I thought he was being honest. He was obeying the original pit signal. He'd left it late, but never mind. I led that lap, having slowed the pace yet again.

"I went into the last lap so easily you can't believe it, still very worried about the fuel. I changed up a thousand revs early. I was almost cruising down the straight before Tosa, because I was not expecting pass me again at all! And all of a sudden I saw him coming up on me. I didn't block him - if you look at the TV you will see that I never defended myself against him. And he comes inside me with wheels almost locked, passes, and wins the race. He let me by on lap 59 because he wanted to draft me at the same place on lap 60. And I was stupid enough to believe he was just being honourable.

"After the race I thought that everyone would realise what had happened, but no. Pironi says that we both had engine problems, and that there were no team orders, and what really pissed me off was that Piccinini confirmed that to the press. My engine was perfect, and there were team orders.

"People seemed to think that we had the battle of our lives! Jesus Christ! I'd been ahead of him most of the race, qualified a second and a half quicker than him. Where was my problem? I was coasting those last 15 laps. He was racing. I think I've proved that, in equal cars, if I want someone to stay behind me... well, I think he stays behind...

"I guess it looked like I was mad at finishing second.

"OK, I'd have been mad at myself for not going quick enough if I'd been plain beaten. Second is one thing, but second because he steals it, that's something else."

As I left the press office on Sunday evening, I picked up a list of the drivers' lap times. Does close scrutiny of these bear out Villeneuve's story? Yes, it does. Here are the last 15 laps, together with their leaders.

Lap 45 - 1m36.578s (Villeneuve); lap 46 - 1m36.451s (Pironi); lap 47 - 1m35.828s (Pironi); lap 48 - 1m35.406s (Pironi); lap 49 - 1m35.967s (Villeneuve); lap 50 - 1m 37.372s (Villeneuve); lap 51 - 1m37.321s (Villeneuve); lap 52 - 1m38.123s (Villeneuve); lap 53 - 1m 35.409s (Pironi); lap 54 - 1m35.571s (Pironi); lap 55 - 1m35.555s (Pironi); lap 56 - 1m35.307s (Pironi); lap 57 - 1m 35.213s (Pironi); lap 58 - 1m35.906s (Pironi); lap 59 - 1m37.020s (Villeneuve); lap 60 - 1m36.271s (Pironi).

Villeneuve is now into his fifth season with Ferrari, and most of the time he's been working with loaves and fishes. As we talked, I formed the distinct impression that Imola may finally drive him away from Maranello.

"Of course I was disappointed with Pironi, because our relationship had always been good, and I trusted him. But I was furious that Piccinini backed up his story to the press. I didn't like the way things were done at Imola at all."

Will he stay with Ferrari next year?

"I don't know. If Pironi is there, then the answer is no, for sure. Even without him, I'm thinking about it. But we cannot both stay because any team needs co-operation between the drivers, and there will be no more of that with us. If we go testing, I'll tell the engineers all the information, and they can tell Pironi if they want to. That's up to them.

"You know," he went on, "I guess people will say I'm overreacting, but I don't see it that way. I trust people until they give me reason not to, but if they let me down, that's it. I would have to be very weak to shake hands with him and say 'Let's forget it.' I can't do that. We were not fighting for fourth place. This was a matter of a Grand Prix victory...

"Pironi has been on French TV, and they say to him that Villeneuve is not very happy. He says again that there were no team orders, and comes out with sweet sugar talk about he understands because it's always hard to be second, blah, blah, blah..."

Supposing, I said, that the same situation were to arise again. He responded vigorously.

"If we get a repeat of Imola, running 1-2, short of fuel, then I guess we're both going to run out of fuel, right? If it's a matter of trying to pass him at the end of the straight in Belgium, I'll take the same chance as if it were a Williams or a Brabham. I'll do what I should have done at Imola - go balls out on the last lap, and forget about the fuel. D'you know how much gas I had at the end? Enough for another half lap..."

On the Tuesday after the race, Enzo Ferrari took the unprecedented step of issuing a press release about the controversy, in which he expressed a certain sympathy for Pironi, but came down solidly on the side of Villeneuve.

"I guess it's nice to know that you have the boss's support," said Gilles wryly, "but it doesn't alter what happened on Sunday, does it?"

It is my opinion that Villeneuve is as great a driver as Ferrari has ever employed, and it would be a tragedy if Italian politics drove him from the team into which he has fitted so perfectly for so long. But if Gilles does go elsewhere at the end of the season - and it's my bet that he will - the men of Maranello will be able to reflect on an afternoon at Imola which tipped the scale. No driver has ever worked as hard for Ferrari, yet his reward has been only six wins in five years. A seventh would have helped.



Any motor racing weekend in Italy is inevitably dominated by Ferrari, and Ferrari folk - particularly when most of their leading rivals are absent.

Curiously enough, when first we arrived in the Imola paddock, on Thursday afternoon, the place seemed fairly full, with all the usual colours and signwriting, and we wondered, briefly, if there had been a change of heart by FOCA. Soon the illusion became clear: the transporters were actually on their way back to England, but many of the motorhomes remained. Sponsors had things to say.

We can no longer delude ourselves that Grand Prix racing is a sport, and must now accept that it is a branch of show business. That is why sponsors pour money into it. They want their names to be seen by the public, and understandably have no altruistic desire to push back the barriers of technical knowledge. They care not about turbos and water bottles. They pay to have their names and logos on display a certain number of times each season.

The big deal, obviously, is television, and for most sponsors the coverage of Imola was 'brand exposure time' gone to waste. I talked to several sponsors' representatives in Italy, and formed the impression that many of the absent teams may have seriously overestimated their backers' patience. "We don't want to be associated with something which has a tawdry, ill-governed and unprofessional image," said one.

What went to waste that weekend? As you drive down the autostrada to Imola, you pass the factory of Ceramica Ragno, the sponsor of Arrows. Imola is therefore a local race, very important for them. Arrows were not there.

Rothmans chose the week of Imola to launch a new cigarette in Italy. March were not there.

Elf, who back Mauro Baldi, had embarked on a publicity campaign, based around the young Italian, for 500 new Elf stations in Italy. Baldi was not there. And the list goes on.

FOCA people constantly tell journalists that they 'don't understand, don't know all the facts,' and of course they are quite right. It is always that way with any secret society. I don't know much about the Masons, either.

What I do know is that I was at Imola, and they were not, that I was well able to judge the mood of the people who allow them to go racing - and, for the most part, to live very comfortably - in the style to which they have become accustomed these 10 years or so.

If we accept, however reluctantly, that Grand Prix racing is show business, then it should keep to the first rule of show business: the show must go on. Sort out your turbo equivalence and your water bottles and weight limits in your own time, away from the circuits. It can never be right to involve the public, to penalise them, to give them half a race, or less.

As always, no one wants to be stuck with mea culpa. But sponsors care not about apportioning blame. They simply want the races to happen. Whatever their grievances, however justified, no one will ever persuade me that FOCA did the right thing by not going to Imola. The fans are not involved in this dispute, yet they lost out. In fact, so did everyone else. Except Ferrari.



After a large slice of the cast had decided to boycott the show, the weekend at Imola had more the atmosphere of testing rather than racing. It was very relaxed.

On Sunday, as we know, Ferrari somehow managed to turn a cantering victory into a major crisis, but during practice both drivers were in good spirits, recalling the action taken against them by FISA after Kyalami, and wondering how heavy would be the governing body's fines against the absent teams at Imola...

Between Long Beach and Imola, I had a week's holiday in France, on the way home dropping in at Montlhery to watch David Piper's Super Sports Cars show, which included that day Pironi in Piper's own Ferrari P4.

Until the CSI stepped in and ruined sports car racing (with their introduction of a 3-litre limit for prototypes) at the end of 1971, I was a devotee. The sight of Pedro Rodriguez in a Porsche 917 rivals anything I have seen at a race circuit.

Ferrari's P4, though, will always by my favourite sports racing car, for its combination of elegance and muscle. Seven years ago, Chris Amon took me round Oulton Park in the very example with which he Lorenzo Bandini had won at Daytona and Monza in 1967, and it was an unforgettable experience. It was a car for which he had a particular affection.

When you haven't seen a P4 for some time, reacquaintance with its sheer beauty takes your breath away. I saw Piper's car - complete with 'Prova M053' on the back - and just gazed. The sun was shining, and there wasn't an argument to be heard.

What particularly appealed to me about David's car was that it looked used - a racing car for racing, rather than some immaculate museum piece. There were little dents in the bodywork, and everything was a bit oily - exactly, in fact, as the P4s used to be when the factory raced them. The Avon slicks detracted a little, but then grooved Firestones are hard to find in 1982!

Pironi practised the car briefly, took pole position by more than two seconds and led the race comfortably until the 4-litre V12 suffered expensive internal damage.

I was in the pits with Piper and Jean Sage during the race, and commented that the car seemed to be smoking a little more every time around. "Well," said David, "they were always fairly oily, you know." At that moment the commentator announced that Didier had parked the P4 by the trackside. A brief squall of pain passed over the face of the Patron, but he controlled himself admirably - particularly since he had blown his 275LM only that morning.

Didier himself was ecstatic about the car. "What are you doing here?" he asked, when we met in the pits during the morning, and I said that I might ask the same of him.

"About a month ago, the sponsor of the race asked me if I would do it, and the Commendatore said it was OK so long as I drove a Ferrari! So... here I am.

"In this car." he continued, "I have rediscovered the pleasure of driving. No one can pretend that he actually enjoys driving the Formula 1 car of today, but this is pure pleasure. The car rides beautifully, slides progressively, and you can steer it with your right foot. I haven't enjoyed a racing car so much for years..."

During practice Villeneuve also bubbled with enthusiasm about a new toy. Gilles is passionate about helicopters, and for some time had one on loan from Walter Wolf, for whom he once drove a Can-Am car. At Imola, however, he had something new, a dramatic machine, white and red and orange, which was parked, under heavy guard, in a nearby football stadium.

"It's an Agusta 109, designed and built in Italy," he related. "It's twin-engined - and the fastest of its class, with a cruising speed of 175mph. It has full IFR, retractable undercarriage, autopilot, flight director, all the bits and pieces. They're just about to introduce colour radar for them, so I'll get that, too. It's a fantastic machine, really.

"Yes, of course it's very expensive, but I also have a deal with Agusta to do some publicity work, so that helped a bit. I guess some drivers would not use it enough to justify buying it, but being at Ferrari I use it a lot to fly from Monaco to Fiorano. Otherwise, it's a three-hour drive all the time. In the helicopter it's an hour, that's all. I also have a little chalet in the mountains behind Monaco - four hours' drive away - and we can land the helicopter within a hundred feet of it. The trip takes 25 minutes! Of course, there are cheaper ways of travelling..."