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Jacques Villeneuve has hinted strongly that 2002 could be his
last season with BAR Honda.
"I hate being uncompetitive," he told London's Evening
Standard today.
"Nobody likes it. It is frustrating and it's very tiring.
You have to push people to work harder, to make sure it gets better
in the long term.
"But the long term is getting shorter and shorter.
"I'll see what happens in the next couple of months, but I
won't stick with it forever. There comes a point when enough is
enough."
Villeneuve's statement follows a report in this week's Motorsport
News magazine in which BAR's new team principal David Richards
suggested that Villeneuve might be too expensive and that he would
rather spend money on improving the team's cars than on expensive
drivers.
"It's foolish having a Michael Schumacher driving a
Minardi," he said.
"It's better to get the race car right and then go and
employ Schumacher later."
Villeneuve, the 1997 world champion when he was driving for
Williams, was brought to BAR Honda by his long-time friend and
manager and then BAR boss Craig Pollock at a salary believed to be
second only to current world champion Michael Schumacher's.
But he has met with very little success in a team that has never
looked like getting into the first league.
His best finish from four races this year has been a seventh
place at last week's San Marino Grand Prix and the team have yet to
score a point.
Before this he had only finished on the podium twice in four
seasons, in each case in third place, and in the circumstances, both
his and Richard's sentiments on the subject are extremely realistic
and may be paving the way for an amicable separation at the end of
the year.
The 31-year-old French Canadian who earlier this year saw BAR
owners British American Tobacco replace Pollock with Richards
without informing him, admits, "there was a risk in coming to
BAR."
"It didn't pay off and that's fine.
"I've learned a lot and I'm a better driver than I was. It
wasn't Craig's fault that the car wasn't fast.
"Someone had to have their head chopped and he was team
principal so it's normal that he got chopped.
"The decision that is more difficult to accept is to have
stayed with the team when I re-signed the contract, because there
had been two years of no results and there was obviously no reason
for the team to get better."
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