Jacques Villeneuve slams Sauber

By Phil Huff
June 15 2005

Jacques Villeneuve has slammed his Sauber Petronas team, accusing the Swiss squad of ignoring his experience and hoping the team is taken over by BMW.

"[BMW buying the team] would be a very good thing," commented Villeneuve in the Canadian La Presse newspaper. "It would bring in more money and a different attitude."

The attitude of the team is one area that Jacques paid special attention to, slating the teams management.

"In this team, the driver has no influence," says Villeneuve. "The only thing that matters is aerodynamics. It's not what I thought, it's not what I had been told.

"When they hired me, it was to use my experience," he continued. "They do not use it at all. Nobody ever asks my advice and when I give it, they don't want it. I try to put forward ideas, to be proactive but I am hitting a wall, a very smooth wall with no grip.

"The team wanted experience, they paid for that. Now, the experience is there but they don't want to use it. It is part of their tools but they are leaving it in the toolbox."

Jacques himself had been criticised recently by Peter Sauber, with the team boss telling Autosprint magazine that "Jacques is certainly too slow. We've all become aware of it, himself and us. He goes too slow and it's difficult to find the cause, but it represents a problem which we must solve internally."

Predictably unimpressed, Villeneuve retorted "If the team had not said 'we are disappointed, Jacques is not quick' I would have said nothing, but they say things like that and they don't want to let me work.

"What am I supposed to do? It's not fair."