Jacques Villeneuve pleasantly surprised at how his former Williams F1 team performed in 2014, especially Bottas - MotorSportsTalk

Hard as it may seem to believe, it’s been nearly two decades since Jacques Villeneuve won the Formula Championship for Williams in 1997.

Villeneuve was critical of his former team in 2013, telling Portuguese magazine Revista Warmup that Williams’ hiring of Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas, “When a team is reduced to hiring pay-drivers, it’s over.”

But the way Williams-Mercedes performed in 2014, particularly with Bottas behind the wheel and the team managed by co-owner Toto Wolff, Villeneuve is much more bullish on the team’s future, according to a a story on PaddockTalk.com.

Bottas finished fourth in Formula One in the 2014 season and teammate Felipe Massa finished seventh, while Williams finished third in the constructor’s championship. Those strong finishes prompted Villeneuve to do a complete 180-degree turn in his opinion of both Bottas as a driver and Williams as an organization from 2013 to 2014

“Bottas is a young driver, not really a pay-driver,” Villeneuve said recently to Revista Warmup. “Even with Felipe Massa they got some money from Brazil. “But he is also a professional driver with a past, a career, and they (Williams) knew well how to use the money.”

Wolff has already called Williams perhaps the “most dangerous rival” to the overall Mercedes program in 2015, a comment that Villeneuve agrees with.

“Williams does not have a big budget,” said Villeneuve, “yet they managed to turn the tide. But it is not completed yet.

“(2014) was the first season that they went well, so we will have to see if it continues the same way.”

Villeneuve, now 43, won seven races for Williams in the 1997 championship season. He admitted he did not expect his old team to be good “but not that good.”

And when they finished as high as they did, Villeneuve admitted his pleasant surprise at them doing so.

“I expected them to be better (in 2014 than 2013), but they exceeded expectations,” Villeneuve said.

As for Wolff, he admits there’s strong interest in the 25-year-old Bottas, a native of Finland, from other teams.

Among the most mentioned scenarios is Bottas as a potential teammate at Ferrari with Fernando Alonso if a vacancy were to occur in the near future.

“They (Ferrari) do not have a lot of options when the contract of (Kimi) Raikkonen expires,” Wolff told Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport. “From my side, there are certain conditions in the event that his (Bottas’) future sits outside of Mercedes.”

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DETROIT – There’s no rest for the weary as an Indy 500 winner, but Josef Newgarden discovered there are plenty of extra laps.

The reigning Indy 500 champion added an extra trip Wednesday night back to Concord, N.C., for one last session on the GM Racing simulator before Sunday’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix.

After a 30-year run on the Belle Isle course, the race has been moved to a nine-turn, 1.7-mile layout downtown, so two extra hours on the simulator were worth it for Newgarden.

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“I really wanted to do it,” he told NBC Sports at a Thursday media luncheon. “If there’s any time that the sim is most useful, it’s in this situation when no one has ever been on a track, and we’re able to simulate it as best as we can. We want to get some seat time.

“It’s extra important coming off the Indy 500 because you’ve been out of rhythm for a road or street course-type environment, so I really wanted some laps. I was really appreciative to Chevy. There was a few guys that just came in and stayed late for me so I could get those laps before coming up here. I don’t know if it’s going to make a difference, but I feel like it’s going to help for me.”

After a whirlwind tour of New York for two days, Newgarden arrived at the simulator (which is at the GM Racing Technical Center adjacent to Hendrick Motorsports) in time for a two hour session that started at 6 p.m. Wednesday. He stayed overnight in Charlotte and then was up for an early commercial flight to Detroit, where he had more media obligations.

Newgarden joked that if he had a jet, he would have made a quick stop in Nashville, Tennessee, but a few more days away from home (where he has yet to return in weeks) is a worthy tradeoff for winning the Greatest Spectacle in Racing – though the nonstop interviews can take a toll.

“It’s the hardest part of the gig for me is all this fanfare and celebration,” Newgarden said. “I love doing it because I’m so passionate about the Indy 500 and that racetrack and what that race represents. I feel honored to be able to speak about it. It’s been really natural and easy for me to enjoy it because I’ve been there for so many years.

“Speaking about this win has been almost the easiest job I’ve ever had for postrace celebrations. But it’s still for me a lot of work. I get worn out pretty easily. I’m very introverted. So to do this for three days straight, it’s been a lot.”

Though he is terrified of heights, touring the top of the Empire State Building for the first time was a major highlight (and produced the tour’s most viral moment).

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“I was scared to get to the very top level,” Newgarden said. “That thing was swaying. No one else thought it was swaying. I’m pretty sure it was. I really impressed by the facility. I’d never seen it before. It’s one of those bucket list things. If you go to New York, it’s really special to do that. So to be there with the wreath and the whole setup, it just felt like an honor to be in that moment.”

Now the attention shifts to Detroit and an inaugural circuit that’s expected to be challenging. Along with a Jefferson Avenue straightaway that’s 0.9 miles long, the track has several low-speed corners and a “split” pit lane (teams will stop on both sides of a rectangular area) with a narrow exit that blends just before a 90-degree lefthand turn into Turn 1.

Newgarden thinks the track is most similar to the Music City Grand Prix in Nashville.

“It’s really hard to predict with this stuff until we actually run,” he said. “Maybe we go super smooth and have no issues. Typically when you have a new event, you’re going to have some teething issues. That’s understandable. We’ve always got to massage the event to get it where we want it, but this team has worked pretty hard. They’ve tried to get feedback constantly on what are we doing right, what do we need to look out for. They’ve done a ton of grinding to make sure this surface is in as good of shape as possible.

“There’s been no expense spared, but you can’t foresee everything. I have no idea how it’s going to race. I think typically when you look at a circuit that seems simple on paper, people tend to think it’s not going to be an exciting race, or challenging. I find the opposite always happens when we think that way. Watch it be the most exciting, chaotic, entertaining race.

Newgarden won the last two pole positions at Belle Isle’s 2.35-mile layout and hopes to continue the momentum while avoiding any post-Brickyard letdown.

“I love this is an opportunity for us to get something right quicker than anyone else,” he said. “A new track is always exciting from that standpoint. I feel I’m in a different spot. I’m pretty run down. I’m really trying to refocus and gain some energy back for tomorrow. Which I’ll have time to today, which is great.

“I don’t want that Indy 500 hangover. People always talk about it. They’ve always observed it. That doesn’t mean we have to win this weekend, but I’d like to leave here feeling like we had a really complete event, did a good job and had a solid finish leading into the summer. I want to win everywhere I go, but if we come out of here with a solid result and no mistakes, then probably everyone will be happy with it.”