Gilles Villeneuve, by Jody Scheckter

But I always felt he didn’t care about the tifosi. I think in his part of Canada they looked down on Italians, and I think he had that attitude. I always used to think it was funny that they liked him so much. Perhaps he was putting it on, and inside he did like them a lot, but outwardly he would make the odd remark…

One story sums him up – he had air-conditioning and a fire so he put both on. He wanted to do photography, and bought thousands of pounds worth of equipment he hardly used. Then he wanted tools, because he used to work as a mechanic. He went to Beta and bought a whole garage full of the best stuff, and never used them!

I then won in Belgium and Monaco, which put me back on track but he was dominant over me was Dijon. I battled like mad, but he was quicker, and I couldn’t really work out why. That was the race where he had the fight with Arnoux. I thought what they did was stupid. I told Gilles, and I think he knew it was stupid.

I was the President of the Grand Prix Drivers Association at the time, and Gilles really worked with me. From a safety point of view he was very responsible. I think we both wanted to make it as safe as possible. That didn’t mean to say we were driving carefully; you still drove with aggression. But you felt that if something happened, you wanted to have a chance.

I don’t think he tried to do things that put him in uncalculated danger. I think from that point of view he was a responsible driver. He always had this image of being crazy, and he wasn’t really. He was only crazy when he wanted to be, it was his image. I always tell the story about driving from Monaco with him. I didn’t want to do it, because I hated to be a passenger. But the whole time he drove perfectly, until we got just outside Modena, and soon the wheels were spinning and he started sliding around and everything. That was the proof of what I felt.

I also remember going with him in his helicopter, and again once we got over Modena he started his tricks again. I stopped that really quickly. I hated flying. He was going down and then up. I said you better stop now or I’ll wring your neck. He knew I meant it.

Zandvoort was really the turning point that year. I messed up the clutch at the start, and dropped to the back. He was at the front, and then his tyre went down, which was pretty spectacular. I went through the field and came second behind Alan Jones, and that really put me into a dominant position.

I had it under control in Monza. What gave me confidence was I knew Gilles was doing these silly things to keep his image up and that gave me comfort. He was testing qualifiers and getting the quickest times, and I was sticking to hard tyres and testing bits of the car I knew would help me in the race. In qualifying I think that was the biggest gap between us all year, and in the race I was quicker. As soon as Jacques Laffite dropped out, I cut my revs back and sat ahead of Gilles. Only on the last lap did I accelerate away again. Although I trusted him, I didn’t want to take a chance; it was too important a thing to take a chance with!

I think we were professionals. We tried as hard as we could and the one who came out in front, won. There were lots of times when he was faster than I was, and times when I was faster than he was.

We raced hard, and I beat him. I won the Championship because in the races that counted I got out in front, and was in front when it settled down. At that stage there was no point in fighting. There were no circumstances where he had to give up a place to me, so I don’t think it was frustrating for him.

The 1980 car was a disaster. Gilles had very good performances in it. I didn’t. I was more advanced in my career, and found it very difficult racing for tenth place, whereas he just drove. He brought it near the front a few times, which I couldn’t do. I announced my retirement halfway through the year, and felt out of place soon after I did that. The cause wasn’t there, like it had been before. You were retiring, you were last year’s driver.

After I retired there was talk of Gilles starting a team. I don’t think he ever felt tied to Maranello. Gilles would have left Ferrari if he felt he could go where he would win races. From that point of view I don’t think he was particularly sentimental. There was supposedly a sponsor – a cigarette company – that had masses of money to help him start this team. I think he would have liked his own team, and he was quite excited doing something like that, and the idea was that I was going to be team manager.

I volunteered to look into it, and found out this guy was nobody, a bullshitter basically. I came back to Gilles with the news. If the sponsor was real, it could have happened. Later we had a bit of an argument over something personal, and I didn’t see him for a year. However, after Didier Pironi overtook him at Imola in 1982 to steal the win, he called and we went to Modena in his helicopter. I suppose a relationship is worth more than one argument; at least that’s what I felt.

We talked a lot. He hated what had happened at Imola. He realised what a good relationship we’d had, and that we never double-crossed each other, and we were very honest and open, and that Pironi hadn’t been that way with him. I don’t think he ever thought that it could ever happen.