Jacques Villeneuve: In His Own Right

By Christopher Hilton

This is the story of Jacques Villeneuve, at aged 24, the youngest driver to win the IndyCar Championship in 1995. Full of interviews, race details and statistics, the book follows his rise through... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 185260557X
• ISBN13: 9781852605575
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Motorbooks Intl
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.5" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

In his own right - and how to write it wrong! :)

Don't get me wrong - this is a very good book to read and is full of interesting background information on Jacques early life and career up to entering F1. The main problem I have with the book is not the information or content but the sychophantic style Hilton has. He writes the book from the approach of a starry-eyed fan convinced of the fact that his subject is already a legend rather than taking a less biased journalistic approach. He is never content to let any of his sources say anything bad at all about Jacques and even goes so far as to "interpret" what they really mean. The most glaring example of this is the interview with Richard Spenard (ran or still runs the F2000 school in Canada) where Spenard compares him with his father (two completely different backgrounds by the way) and states "He struck me as spoilt (deep chuckle), you know, definitely not like Gilles." and Hilton finds it necessary to point out (in italics) "Let's be careful about spoilt because, in this context, it has two meanings: given everything you want, or having a comfortable upbringing. Spenard, I sense, means the latter - something quite different." Why does Hilton find it neccesary to compromise what could have been a good objective look at the man and keep injecting his unobjective view? All in all though it is a good read, if you ignore the author's annoying thoughts, and I read it in one sitting. David Sidwell