Club Arnage

Former World Champion and ousted BMW Sauber racer Jacques Villeneuve will race at Le Mans in June, according to widespread reports on Tuesday.


The news means that French Canadian Villeneuve, 35, will have a shot at becoming the first driver in history to collect motor racing's 'big four' crowns - F1, the Indy 500, CART (now Champ Car) and the famous 24 hour endurance event.


Peugeot will shortly name Villeneuve, who is also linked with full time rides in NASCAR or DTM, alongside Marc Gene and Sebastian Bourdais and up to four others to steer the V12 diesel 908, the French publication L'Equipe said.


Peugeot has already confirmed Nicolas Minassian, Stephane Sarrazin and Pedro Lamy.

Cool stuff. Together with Irvine he made F1 interesting the last decade 8)

A lot nicer anyway than the robots that drive in F1 nowardays.

Somebody give Mario - the man from Nazareth - another ride and let somebody with some real class claim the honours before Jacques does!

Peugeot is clearly throwing a big pile of money JV's way, because he's never showed any interest in doing LM previously, and from what I've read and heard from JV money seems to be his main motivation.
Oldtimer, as much as I'd love to see Mario win LeMans, he was embarrassingly off the pace during his last outings with Panoz.  Personally I would rather see Mario stay in retirement rather than tarnish his reputation with a way off the pace return.
Fax

Ever the optimist John!!!  ;D ;D ;D ;D 

Unfortunatley it seems more and more these days that it's the car and technology rather than the driver that takes the flag.

Anyway John, we have more important thngs to think about, like a drunkard assualt on the souvenier t-shirt shop in two months time!!  ;)

Tell Jan Lammers that >:(

(referring to Yoong ofcourse)

Touche!!

Unfortunatley in Jan's case,  it's the driver bringing the money sometimes as well (i.e. Yoong)

As opposed to A1 GP where it was the driver taking the money!!!!!!!!  ;)

Sorry if I sounded negative about it, its something I've been trying not to do.  But the idea of JV racing at LM doesn't make me all warm & fuzzy.  Like I said, he's never expressed any interest in racing there before and I suspect this is just all about money, unless I hear or read something to make me believe otherwise.
And Mario's simply too damn old to be competitve.
Good to hear from you again Mark!
Fax

Let's give JV a chance. Remember Eddie Irvine who admitted in his book that in the beginning he came to Le Mans just for the money and was actually hoping that the car would break down soon ... and he wrote that he came away in love with Le Mans and I still remember his incredible ride in 1994

Personally I would love to see JV in Le Mans, although his late F1 performances were questionable I think he still is a racer

Yup - with you there Fax.  Retired drivers should generally stay that way - especially as the years advance!  It comes to even the average every day driver, you begin to realise that your reactions and physical condition are not improving with age!  Better to have good memories of great drivers than watch their rather sad attempts to rekindle the spirit of the past.
Villeneuve is a good move for Peugeot - although I'm not a particular fan myself.  It will be very interesting to see the spectator numbers for LM '07 - they were at a record high last year, the most noticable increase being in the home crowd who were hoping to see old Pesca push Audi off the perch. But personally, I reckon that sadly Pug are going to need a miracle, not just an ex F1 driver. Time will tell...

I know, I know - just wanted to stimulate some lively debate to be honest.

To me Mario epitomises the great all-round racer and is somebody for whom I have a huge amount of respect and fondness - unlike JV...

Adding to lively debate.... Being only (!) 35 years old, my memories of dear old Mario are a couple of seasons of Indy Car with Newman Haas before our dear old Nigel went over and showed him a clean pair of heels!!!

Can't help feeling that the Andretti mafia are not as fast as they think they are, but then I guess your surname gets you a long way in motorsport!!

It will indeed be interesting. 2007 has no international Football competition to compete with and in my experience that usually seems to result in a larger than usual visiting contingent too. As for JV, I reckon he will drive into the back of someone after about 45 minutes and be back home before the race even finishes.. ;D

Fax - Just to put the record straight. JV is on record as saying that he wanted to race at Le Mans once he'd retired from F1.
In 2005 he told Autosport:
"The reason for me to do Le Mans is that nobody has won all four. Three have been won, but never four. If you stop racing for a few years, then you are not on it anymore. You can still be quick, but not absolutely on it. So I'd want to do Le Mans straightaway after F1, get it over with and then I can get away from racing completely."

I'm making no predictions about Peugeot in the 24 hours this year, but Bourdais/Villeneuve/Gene doesn't seem too bad a driver line-up.

my memories of dear old Mario are a couple of seasons of Indy Car with Newman Haas before our dear old Nigel went over and showed him a clean pair of heels!!!

Can't help feeling that the Andretti mafia are not as fast as they think they are
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Unfortunately your memories of Mario are of a period when already he was past his best.  Dig out some of the history books and see his achievements - for example a pretty eye catching GP debut.

Think you are right though about the surname... I am not convinced that latter day racing Andretti's really stood up to the old man's reputation.

Thanks KPY for setting me straight about JV, however I still suspect he's in it for the dosh rather than the thrill.
I admit to not being a fan of JV though, I've always seen him as a spoiled brat.
Regarding Mario, probably the most versatile racing driver to have ever lived.  I remember years where I'd see him racing sprint cars at Eldora one night, then a couple of weeks later see him racing a champ car at Indy, then a month see him in a F5000 car at Mid-Ohio. The guy could drive anything and win.  Blindingly quick on any type of circuit, in any kind of weather, he was a super aggressive overtaker and fearless in lapped traffic.
His lone Indy 500 win in '69 is pitiful reward for some of the dominating drives he put in there, I saw his 1987 drive at Indy where he was absolutely in a class of his own, only to be let down by fuel pump failure in the closing laps.  Most remember his F1 glory days as the high point of his career, he recalls the 1970 Sebring 12 Hours as his finest win.  Agree about his boys, and grandson.  Too much of a silver spoon in the mouth attitude.  I remember very vividly our family sitting next to Dee Ann Andretti (Mario's wife) in the Tower Terrace at Indy during the first day of qualifications for the 500 in 1973, when they announced the death of Art Pollard, who had crashed during morning warmup, there wasn't a shred of emotion from her, while the crowd went silent she continued her conversation with a friend sitting next to her as if nothing happened.  She seemed to become very hardened by her years around the sport.
Fax

Oh dear I seem to be in agreement with Fax, what will the world come to!

I am not to worried if he is there or not realy, just as long as he is not aloud to sing :o

But this did make me smile on dotdotdotcomma.com
"Insiders claim, however, that Vileknave's real wish is to take the Circuit de la Sarthe's infamous Porsche Curves without lifting his right foot, thereby completing a personal hat-trick, which started with a full-throttle lap of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (easy) and continued with an attempt to take Spa's Eau Rouge flat (not quite so easy)."

Autosport also claim he was considering to do the race in 2001.....

"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."

Like the chap or not, rate him as a driver or not, due to the money or not, who knows, but it will still be exciting just to see what he can do against the established drivers and teams.

The whole Pug entry, the drivers and 'different' cars is one of the most exciting bits of news to come to the race in recent years.

The last time I really had a feeling of 'whats going to happen' was when Audi first turned up with the closed and open top cars to see 'which was best'.

Can't wait.

Does anyone know if the pug effort similar to the bentley plan of winning in 3 years then stopping.

yes the last few hours of that race were amazing!

Partly out of defference to his old man and partly because when he really put's his mind to it, JV can be a seriously quick driver. If he acts the prima donna, then sod him. But if he joins in with the team, works hard, drives fast and most importantly has fun and enjoys it, then i would be quite happy to see history written. So I'm keeping an open mind on this one and giving him the benefit of the doubt. The ball's in your court JV!

Hear Hear !!!

MG Mark

Not sure about winning and then stopping, but they have voiced that they are not expecting to win first time out and incidentally all six drivers have only been signed for one year (2007).

Both Audi and Pug are talking of running a bio-diesel car for 2008……so the cars may change again.