Is the Honeymoon Over for Sauber and Villeneuve?

By Jamie Makin
April 9 2005

The difficulties that Jacques Villeneuve has experience in his Formula One return with team SAUBER PETRONAS came to a head this week after Massa replaced him a day earlier than planned in the test at Barcelona, Spain.

Villeneuve ran slow and inconsistent lap times on Wednesday which prompted the team to bring Massa in Thursday for a second opinion. Reporters on hand for the test said that Villeneuve was visibly angry and shouting at his engineers and mechanics. He left the track in his RV that afternoon, despite the team hoping to put him back in the car on Friday.

Team boss Peter Sauber has maintained his usual silence during the season's rumours of replacing Villeneuve, but he finally decided to make a statement after the week's events.

"The partnership between Jacques Villeneuve and Sauber Petronas is currently at a difficult point," Sauber admitted to Reuters. "To keep from straining the relationship any further, I prefer not to make any further comments at the moment."

This sounds suspiciously like Peter has nothing nice to say so he will say nothing at all. However, the Swiss team boss still had words of assurance for his veteran driver.

"In Malaysia we were married to Anthony Davidson, before Bahrain apparently Klien or Liuzzi would replace Jacques very soon," Sauber told Autosport. "But there was no contact whatsoever with any of these drivers. And the reason for that is simple: I feel no urge for a driver change."

"My priority one is to make the car go faster; only then we can start to have a look at the performance of the drivers," he went on to say. "It always strikes me how short the memory of some people is. Jacques drove fastest laps in winter time with our C23, also on a wet track which is not really the strength of the Canadian. Do the critics really think that suddenly Jacques has lost his capabilities? Of course, we were disappointed with his performances, but even more so he is himself."

Meanwhile, it was reported in Switzerland's Blick newspaper that Villeneuve is confirmed for the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola in two week's time. However, Peter Sauber declined to comment on whether Villeneuve would take part in the Spanish Grand Prix.

Another newspaper, Zurich's Tages-Anzeiger claimed, "It's clear that Sauber will be replacing Villeneuve. The only question is when and with whom."

The rumours do not look set to die anytime soon despite Peter Sauber's words of support. The only thing that is clear is there are indeed difficulties between the team and Villeneuve but both parties still seem willing to work through them for now.