It's Jacques to the future for Pollock

Craig Pollock sits in his office on the upper deck of his million- pound British American Racing motorhome. The walls are finished in cold blue steel, the roof issupported by polished aluminium girders. Apart from a few sticks of modern furniture, the room is bare. These are futuristicsurroundings for a man with plenty to look forward to. For this week, despite widespread rumours that he was about to lose his star driver to another team, Pollock managed to get 1997 world champion JacquesVilleneuve's signature on new contract worth #50m over three years.

"I've been working with Jacques for seven years," says Pollock. "And I've known him since he was 12 years old. If he had gone to another team, it would have been a huge slap in the face for me. Because, if I started up a Formula One team, no doubt about it, in my head it was all about building it up around Jacques Villeneuve and I hate losing.

"Building up a team with 300 people is not about being last, as we were at the start of this year. We've made the progression and the vote of confidence that Jacques has given us by signing is tremendous.

"I always believed that we were in aposition of strength with Jacques. Obviously there is the personal thing between Jacques and myself - I know how to read him and I knew what he was looking for. I knew he was looking for his fair market value."

The announcement was greeted withsurprise by the Formula One fraternity and reflects the hold that the 44-year-old from Falkirk has on the driver he considers his best friend. Although British American Racing has raised its game significantly in recent races, the last 18 months have been a disaster for Villeneuve's career.

Last season, the team entered the sport with a massive fanfare and a budget to match, but failed to score a single point. This year, they have joined forces with Honda and although there have been some solid points finishes taking the team to fifth place in the championship, BAR is still a long way offthe pace of two teams fighting for thechampionship, McLaren and Ferrari.

With no vacancies at either of those teams until the end of 2001, Villeneuve had a tough decision to make - should he keep faith with Pollock and BAR Honda, or should he move to a Benetton team which was acquiredearlier this year byRenault? The Canadian won his world title with Renault power and, as the leading French-speaking driver, he was their first choice.

Many paddock insiders thought Benetton the logical choice. Renault were prepared to spend #12m a year onVilleneuve's retainer and have recently hired top designer Mike Gascoigne from Jordan. But the team is restructuring and is unlikely to hit the front for a couple more years yet.

After a victory drought stretching back to September, 1997, Villeneuve is desperate to win again. Pollock was able to persuade his friend that BAR would get him back to the top of the podium faster. AlthoughVilleneuve's deal is presented as three years, it is in fact one year with options. There isbelieved to be a target number of points the team must achieve next season in order to keep hold of him for 2002. If they fail to meet the target, he is free to walk.

Benetton say they will be back next year to talk, while Villeneuve will no doubt makeenquiries at McLaren and Ferrari, where Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard and Rubens Barrichello's contracts will be up for renewal. Getting three more years out of Villeneuve will be hard, but Pollock remains optimistic.

"To win championships, we are going to have get better this year and next year," he explained. "The car is getting better, the team is getting better, but to catch up with Ferrari and McLaren is a hard task. If you look at the gap in points between the second place team and the third, it's enormous.

"There are 19 points in third place, while the second place team has 92 points. That's the gap we have to catch up and every team in the pit lane has to do the same. In reality, the year after next we should be trying to win the championships."

Villeneuve is a straightforward andpragmatic man. He doesn't like to over-complicate things, but he is driven by afiercely competitive spirit, which is notsatisfied by battling with the also-rans. His task was to decide which of two ugly ducklings would be the first to turn into a swan.

"It wasn't easy because there were other good options," says Villeneuve. "After twodifficult years, where promises before the first contract didn't come through, the team has been progressing. It's improving in all areas. I knew what I had here, whereas, if I wentelsewhere, I would be going to promises. Ibelieve that the two main options were good long-term options and were teams which would be winning races and championships.

"I don't think it came down to which one would have the most chance of winning. It's very difficult to know which one will find a special thing which will make it morecompetitive. I believe BAR can do it and that's as far as I need to go in my thinking. I didn't do it for the money. I've been working hard on this project, I believe in it and it's going to be nice to see it to the end."

Behind the tough negotiations and the business arrangements of Pollock and Villeneuve lies a close friendship and a shared dream of building a winning F1 team from scratch.

The relationship goes back 17 years to when Pollock was a PE teacher in Switzerland and Villeneuve his pupil. The two kept in touch and, when Villeneuve decided to follow in the motor racing footsteps of his legendary father, Gilles - who died at the wheel of aFerrari F1 car - Pollock took over management of his career.

Villeneuve's progress was meteoric. He won the Indianapolis 500 and the IndyCar championship in 1995. Pollock steered him into the best team in Formula One for 1996 and he narrowly lost the world championship to his Williams team-mate, Damon Hill. The following year, he beat Michael Schumacher in a straight fight to claim the world title.

The enormous success of their earlypartnership puts the difficulties they haveencountered with BAR into sharp perspective. While Villeneuve conquered the world,Pollock began laying out the plans for a new team, which would be financed by British American Tobacco. He brought in top racing car manufacturer Reynard and gotVilleneuve to commit to the project. The dream quickly turned into a nightmare as poor reliability on the track and fierceinternal squabbling made the team a laughing stock. It wasn't helped by their image of under-achieving big spenders and the wildlyexaggerated claims made by Pollock'spartners that they would win their first race.

"Last year is the best thing that could have happened to us," says Pollock, "because it taught us and made us focus on what we were trying to do. If it had been up to me, we would have done things in a much morelow-key way, like we're doing this year."

Pollock says his Scottishness is important to him, but adds it is a "quiet Scottishness", not something to be worn as an emblem. Born in Falkirk, he went to school in Glasgow and played rugby for the Scottish Schools side, where he managed to keep a certain John Rutherford out of the fly-half position, forcing the future Scottish internationalist to play at centre.

He taught physical education in Keithbefore moving to a private school inSwitzerland, where he taught Villeneuve. But his ambitions lay in professional sport.

He quit teaching in the mid-1980s and started selling television sports rights, briefly working with Bernie Ecclestone on thebrokering of Formula One rights. He began managing Villeneuve's career in 1993 and grew his management company internationallybefore passing it on when he founded BAR. Theirs is a unique relationship in Formula One, with Pollock acting in many ways like anadoptive father to the young Canadian.

"When he was racing in America, I was like a big brother to him," says Pollock. "We spent all our time together. Now the relationship has matured, it's a bit like a father, knowing when to talk and when not to talk, when to advise and so on.

"It's easier for Jacques to separate theemotion in the decision- making process than it is for me. But, even so, I told him that he had to leave me out of his thinking when making the decision. He had to do whatever was best for Jacques Villeneuve."

The future begins today and Villenueve is well placed for another strong result.Hockenheim is all about engine power and the new Honda looks very strong. Villeneuve has shown immense faith in his mentor, but Pollock must now deliver on his promises.

Copyright 2000
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.