Ferrari’s Gilles Villeneuve — a master of cold-weather racing conditions — took victory at the frigid 1978 Canadian Grand Prix.
For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the holiday season is a time of cooler temperatures and maybe even the threat of snow — all well and good for Christmas, but what about during a Formula 1 race?
In 1978, the Canadian Grand Prix — the first hosted in Montreal — brought with it a biting wind and freezing temperatures. It was the coldest Formula 1 race in history, and it should come as no surprise that it was ultimately won by a master of the winter sports scene.
A “biting wind.” The “threat of snow from the north.” Such is how Motor Sport Magazine described Formula 1’s 1978 season finale, which took place for the very first time at the Île Notre-Dame Circuit in Montreal.
Since 1967, the Canadian Grand Prix became a regular feature on the Formula 1 calendar, with only a brief exception in 1975. For those first years, the race bounced between Mosport Park in Ontario and Mont-Tremblant in Quebec — and, in order to cut down on travel, the event was usually tied up with the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen.
The end-of-season scheduling often saw the Canadian race scheduled for October, bringing with it cooler temperatures — but none were as frigid as 1978’s race.
On race day, temperatures were as low as five degrees Celsius (or 41 degrees Fahrenheit, for the Americans). The circuit was constructed entirely of public roads on a local island — but the whole weekend saw drivers struggle for traction in wet and chilly conditions.
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One driver stood out from the rest: Gilles Villeneuve.
The Canadian driver was wrapping up his first full season as a Formula 1 driver, having signed onto the legendary Scuderia Ferrari team. It had been a challenging season for the retirement-prone driver, and up to that point, his best finish of the year was a third place in Austria.
Villeneuve, though, had a secret up his sleeve.
Growing up in the small town of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Villeneuve’s on-track racing season was cut short by long and harsh Quebec winters — but his determination to compete remained. Instead of taking a few months off when the snow fell, Villeneuve hopped on his snowmobile and started entering it in races.
And he was hugely successful, despite the massively challenging conditions. Local snowmobile races were often held on oval tracks, and the packed fields kicked up so much snow that it was like driving in a blizzard.
Per Villeneuve’s biographer Gerald Donaldson, this gave the Canadian racer a “finely tuned sense of balance and an almost delicate sensitivity to know just how far he could tempt the centrifugal force that contrived to throw his mount off into the haybales surrounding the slippery circuit. His point of no return became much farther than most as he honed his reflexes to a lightning degree and trusted them to rescue him from the brink at the very last moment.”
For much of Villeneuve’s late teens, snowmobile racing was how he made his money, which should give you an indication of how successful he was.
So, even though the 1978 Canadian Grand Prix dawned dry, the cold temperatures led to a low grip that played right into Villeneuve’s hands.
His start left something to be desired, as he dropped down the grid — but Villeneuve held steady. Drivers like Niki Lauda, Mario Andretti, and Bobby Rahal began to retire, either from contact or from mechanical problems, leaving the field clear for Jody Scheckter to slip into the lead, followed closely by Villeueve.
On lap 25, Villeneuve muscled past Scheckter — the man who was to be his teammate in 1979. That saw him slip into a lead that he held to the end of the 70-lap event, even as he began to feel spooked by strange noises in the car in the final laps.
He crossed the line to take his first Grand Prix victory in Formula 1.
“To win a Grand Prix is something,” Villeneuve recalled after returning to the pits, reported by Gerald Donaldson in Villeneuve’s biography. “But to win your first Grand Prix at home is completely unthinkable.
“I have to thank Mr. Ferrari and all the team. It’s an enormous satisfaction. This is the happiest day of my life.”
As often happens with racing drivers, once Villeneuve won his first F1 race, it was easier to find success as his career went on. In 1979, he secured wins at Kyalami, Long Beach, and Watkins Glen, with victories in Monaco and Spain following in 1981.
In almost every case in 1979, wet and/or cool weather allowed Villeneuve to exercise his exceptional talents of fine-tuned balance and car control. Thus, the coldest race in Formula 1’s history was no match for a master of the snow.
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