Jacques of all Trades

Peugeot were going to have to pull something special out of the hat if they were going to grab the headlines on the launch of their new 908 HDi Le Mans 24 Hours racer this week.

Turbo-diesel prototypes are old news, of course. It's more than a year since Audi's alternatively-fuelled R10 burst into the limelight from under the Eiffel Tower and seven months since the same design claimed an historic victory in the French enduro. The Audi will be a tough act to follow in every respect, but Peugeot made an announcement on Wednesday that will ensure they get their fair share of column inches between now and June.

Peugeot didn't have a central Paris location and world famous landmark in the background, just a wind-swept proving ground a short but tortuous drive from Charles de Gaulle airport. Yet they still worked hard to create a decent show for the massed ranks of the press who had been jetted in from around Europe.

There was a nicely choreographed routine involving a series of drive-bys by a flotilla of black 407 SWs, driven by Peugeot's six Le Mans signings, and the first of the V12-engined 908 LMP1 coupes. And it was all set to music - half movie score, half techno beat - to complete the effect. Quite frankly, they needn't have bothered.

The real story and the real star at the 908 launch was sitting behind the wheel of the last of the 407s to pull into position in front of the cameras. And the smiling ex-Formula One World Champion who emerged trumped the Eiffel Tower any day.

Jacques Villeneuve and Sebastien Bourdais with the Peugeot 908 © Peugeot

It was of little consequence that we were all expecting Jacques Villeneuve to jump out of the black Peugeot, after French sports daily L'Equipe had gone strong on his signing the previous day. Now it was real. A world champion to race at Le Mans, and one with the Villeneuve name! It doesn't get much better than that.

The Canadian's signing is great news for Peugeot and great news for the Le Mans 24 Hours. The French marque can no longer claim a place in the record books as the first winner of the big race with diesel power, but it can outstrip Audi in the PR battle over the course of 2007.

The presence of Villeneuve at La Sarthe on the middle weekend of June will generate acres of coverage right around the world, from North America through Europe and all the way to Japan. Why, even the national press in Britain, a country from which 50,000 people cross the Channel each year to attend the race, will surely have to wake up to the existence of the event.

Peugeot, of course, aren't admitting that they signed up Villeneuve in a cynical attempt to monopolise the headlines come June. The manufacturer's team manager, Serge Saulnier, insists the motivation behind his chase of the former F1 star was a "sporting" one. He wanted to give the former Williams and BAR-Honda driver the chance to make a little bit of history. Should he triumph at Le Mans, Villeneuve would become only the second driver to win the F1 World Championship, the Indy 500 and the 24 Hours.

It's a challenge Villeneuve was happy to take, though he maintains he's not out to emulate the late Graham Hill's triple crown. He reckons he's after a unique "quadruple", pointing out that he also won the CART IndyCar title two years before his F1 championship success in 1997.

Villeneuve genuinely seems up for the challenge. And that's important. F1 drivers turning up at Le Mans don't always do the business, even if they are quick over one lap. Endurance racing in this day and age is all about being quick each and every lap. That means in the dark, in the rain, in traffic, on old tyres and, maybe, in a battered car. Or even all of the above. F1 it ain't.

It should be pointed out that another star driver with a famous surname, one on the ladder on the way to F1 rather than one on the way down, made a lacklustre Le Mans debut in 2006. It would be churlish to name him, but during the night, with a car that was far from perfect, he looked distinctly average. His performance begged the question, 'Does he really want to be doing this?'

The Peugeot 2007 Le Mans line-up © Peugeot

Villeneuve almost certainly does. It is not well known that he was set to race a privately-entered Audi R8 at Le Mans back in 2001 with old friend Patrick Lemarie. Today, Villeneuve says it was only talked about "between friends over a few beers," but former McLaren and Ferrari F1 driver Stefan Johansson, whose team it was, is adamant that it was going to happen. That is before Honda vetoed the plan.

Villeneuve has been quoted many times down the years saying that he would one day like to race at Le Mans. Retired from F1, he now has his chance and he could well be the kind of driver to revel in the unique challenge of the eight-and-a-half-mile Circuit de la Sarthe. Its fast corners - the right-hander at Indianapolis, the Porsches Curves, the Esses and Tertre Rouge - are all Villeneuve territory.

The 1997 world champ has a one-year deal, with an option for 2008. Given Peugeot's modest aspirations for this year - they say they are not expecting to win - Villeneuve will have to come back next season to claim his quadruple crown.

Saulnier is hopeful he'll get his man back for year two of the Peugeot programme, and the rhetoric from his new charge this week suggests his confidence is not misplaced. A Villeneuve victory at Le Mans would be an amazing story. Few would put money on it happening in 2007, but every sportscar fan should rejoice at his presence on the grid this time around.