JV working on perceived image problem

He’s already won a World Championship, an honour bestowed on just three of the 2006 field’s 22 participants, but Jacques knows that, as he enters the final years of his F1 career, he still faces a fight to improve his image in some quarters of the paddock.

While his fans and friends rightly regard Jacques as a colourful and candid character who enlivens the otherwise all-too grey world of F1, his plain-speaking manner appears has apparently enabled his detractors to paint JV as a sometimes difficult and troublesome character.

Such a perception has proved to be burdensome - as well as unfair.

Speaking recently, Renault Technical Director Pat Symonds, recalled JV's brief stint with the team for the finale of the 2004 campaign and recalled how, "In those three races for us, he proved to be a very different person from what I'd expected. I expected a grungy mind with the grungy look, but instead I found an intelligent guy who works hard."

The dangers of such a negative perception are not lost on Jacques Villeneuve, who told Autosport in Bahrain: "I am still working hard on it. A lot of it is the results you get, but another big part of it is just the perception."

Even a World Championship has not allowed JV to rid himself of the unwanted baggage.

"You have drivers who have never had results and people think they are great – just because the teams have always been behind them and always have excuses for them."

"Some other drivers have been winning and still get their legs cut because the perception is bad. There is very little you do about that. If you get on the wrong side of someone at the wrong time then you are screwed."

"The bad years are far enough behind me now not to cause a problem. It takes a long time to erase negativity, but over the winter testing and, during last season in general, people have found out I am not really that difficult to work with."