Death of a Racing Legend: Remembering Gilles Villeneuve

The province of Quebec is a place where its icons intrinsically and immediately become ingrained in the cultural fabric of its identity.

The Green Bay Packers, Muhammed Ali and Babe Ruth are all examples of sports franchises and identities that captivated and enthralled generations of fans. When we read about them we are reading a piece of Americana that transcends their respective sports.

For Quebec, two famous sports icons immediately come to mind: Hockey player Maurice ‘The Rocket’ Richard and race car driver Gilles Villeneuve. Both are part of the Canadiana heritage.

Richard was a hockey player with the Montreal Canadiens – the most glorious of all hockey clubs. The Rocket is strictly a Quebec phenomena, while Gilles Villeneuve aura stretches well beyond the borders of Quebec and Canada.

Today marked the 25th anniversary of the death of a legend. I was ten years old when the shocking and sad images of his body violently hurled and blazed across the television screen after crashing his Ferrari. It was my introduction to surrealism. Villeneuve was no more.

Villeneuve is probably Quebec’s greatest athlete. Hailing from a small town in Quebec, Joseph Gilles Henri Villeneuve became a revered star in the most unlikely of places: the glamourous world of Formula One racing.

Rarely had a racer pushed so daringly across a race track. What made the Villeneuve experience all the more special was that he raced for Ferrari. It was the perfect match. Ferrari represented the essence and mystique of car racing. Villeneuve was the right personality to take over the struggling team. With Villeneuve the Prancing Horse danced once again.

He took a mediocre Ferrari car and spectacularly made it better than it actually was. For this, he earned the eternal love and personal gratitude of Enzo Ferrari and Italians. His style was Villeneuve-esque art form and in a country where art and sophistication rarely goes by overlooked, Gilles was an iconic figure. There is a bronze statue of him at the entrance of the Ferrari test track while the Imola track (site of the San Marino Grand Prix) named a challenging chicane Curva Villeneuve (equipped with a Canadian flag painted on its pavement) in his honour after he crashed there. In addition, Italy is also a place that passionately follows sports and it is not surprising they share this similar trait with Quebecers. They are forever linked. It's not uncommon for an Italian to mention Villeneuve when the topic of conversation turns to Ferrari and racing.

But it did not stop in Quebec, Canada or Italy. Zolda, the Belgian track where Villeneuve lost his life, honours him too. Obviously, the Canadian Grand Prix takes place on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Ferrari has legions of iconic loyal tifosi’s across the world and they all remember him on this day.

For years my friends and I would watch old reruns of races. Of course, one of our favorites was the stunning head to head showdown and the 1978 French Grand Prix against Rene Arnoux that went right down to the wire.

In the last 25 years much has changed in Formula One. Not so long ago, the racing world mourned the loss of another racing legend with the same no holds bar attitude, Aytron Senna. And Ferrari – in all its red fury - is back at the pinnacle of racing where it belongs.

I can’t help but wonder what Gilles Villeneuve would have accomplished with a successful and reliable Ferrari. His six Grand Prix wins would most certainly have increased ten-fold. In those tragic reflections of “what might have been” he could have possibly ended up as the greatest driver ever. Of course, I digress….and dream.

It’s ok to dream at full throttle. After all, this was Villeneuve’s greatest gift.