Jacques Villeneuve dreams of a full season in NASCAR

This winter, Jacques Villeneuve’s long-held dream came true: he competed in the famous NASCAR race in Daytona, finished and finished in 22nd place.

Against the background of his past achievements, ie wins in IndyCar, including the Indy 500, as well as the world title won in Formula 1 in 1997, may not be such an impressive feat, but it is worth watching. to think that the Canadian turned 51 in April. However, he dreams of returning to racing next season and doing so “fully”.

“It was great to be in the Daytona 500 this year. It was a great weekend and my family was living in two motorhomes at the time because my two older sons also came to visit me. This made the weekend go well,” Jacques recalls. an interview with RacingNews365. – I rode well and tried to help the small Team Hezeberg team – I brought two experienced specialists, Tommy Baldwin and Bill Burns, who I have known for a long time.

You see, we have a small team, but we still performed in the race and even managed to finish – it’s just fantastic. Also because we had a lot of technical problems during the preparation process, so there was little time for testing.

Luckily I’ve raced in NASCAR in the past, I have oval track experience and since then I’ve known some drivers, that helped us too… After the finish several drivers came to me with praise because we did everything right. It was great because the respect of professionals has to be earned.

Unfortunately I only performed in Daytona. I’d love to spend a few more races with this team, and the plan was just that – unfortunately, the team didn’t fulfill it. I hated that, because I would love to race in NASCAR, but as far as I understand it, the team only bets on Loris Hezemans (a Dutch driver who has been playing in NASCAR since 2019).

But I would definitely like to continue in NASCAR and even drive a whole season. Now I don’t have time for this, because I work with the French TV channel Canal + (Villeneuve has been commenting on Formula 1 for years, and yet I have such plans. I’ve always loved NASCAR, I’ve always loved racing ovals, I love working with the engineers to make the car better – I love it all.

So right now I’m focused on NASCAR. It is very difficult to succeed in this racing class. Fans think that these machines are technologically simple, but this is definitely not the case. The cars are very well designed and built, and it’s very difficult to get the most out of them, but I like that.