Why does Jacques Villeneuve have every reason to dread the upcoming race in Montreal? What are the odds of Juan Pablo Montoya taking a second consecutive win? And how has McLaren faired at Canada in the past decade? Marcel Schot brings the answers and more anecdotes on the eighth round of 2003

Usually a home Grand Prix is something for a driver to look forward too. There's always more support from the crowd and the presence of friends and family makes the atmosphere a little more relaxed. This would appear to be the ideal environment to give the driver that extra performance boost he can always use. However, this has not been the case for Canadian Jacques Villeneuve, whose past visits to the Montreal circuit have seen him go from bad luck to worse luck, and on the circuit that's named after his father, Gilles.

Jacques Villeneuve's first Canadian Grand Prix was one from the book. After having qualified second behind teammate Damon Hill, he easily kept that position in the race. The next year was when lady luck turned her back on Jacques. The Williams driver again qualified second, but after a single lap Villeneuve went into the corner too fast and just lost it, ending his race there and then. "This is going to be a hard one to swallow," said a disappointed Villeneuve back on that day. "There is no point to stop eating or lose sleep over it but it's going to be difficult to accept."

Despite that early retirement in his home Grand Prix, Villeneuve still went on to win the World Championship in 1997, but after that the Williams team went downhill with Renault pulling out of Formula One. The 1998 race was largely a great performance by Villeneuve, except for one tiny detail. After having started from sixth, Villeneuve had made his way into second behind the leading Benetton of Giancarlo Fisichella.

As the safety-car had come onto the track after Mika Salo crashed, Villeneuve was closely behind Fisichella and wide awake in anticipation of the safety-car's exit. Going into the first corner after the start/finish straight, Villeneuve boldly outbreaked Fisichella and sadly himself too. The Williams jumped through the gravel and made its way back onto the track. However, Villeneuve's speed was a lot lower than that of the rest of the field and the unfortunate Esteban Tuero in the Minardi ploughed right into the back of the Williams. Jacques was able to continue, but what could have been a win now ended with a tenth place finish.

For 1999, Villeneuve had joined his manager Craig Pollock and switched to BAR. This resulted in his worst qualifying performance on home soil: 16th. His race was not much better and just like in 1997 ended the Canadian spinning off after 34 laps and declaring that "it was my mistake. I was simply going a little bit too fast."

The following year ended with a 25 second penalty and an official reprimand from the stewards of the meeting, when Villeneuve went into a corner a little bit too fast and instead of gravel found Ralf Schumacher's Williams in the way. Both drivers were out on the spot, but were still classified as the incident happened just five laps from the end.

Then in the last two Canadian Grands Prix, it was mediocrity all over for Villeneuve. Both times the Canadian qualified ninth and both times he ended the race with a mechanical failure. With all that in the back of his head, it's easy to imagine that Villeneuve isn't too confident going to Montreal.

One driver who's confidence should be on a high this weekend is World Champion Michael Schumacher. With six pole positions and five wins at Montreal, there's absolutely no reason for the German to not expect success. However, it's becoming easier for Schumacher to lead all the statistical categories at most tracks because he's by far the most experienced driver. And, when we look at the average performance of the current drivers, Schumacher's domination at Montreal becomes even more clear:

                Wins            Poles          Podium
M.Schumacher    5/11 (45.5%)    6/11 (54.5%)    8/11 (72.7%)
R.Schumacher    1/6  (16.7%)    -               1/6  (16.7%)
Montoya         -               1/2  (50.0%)    -           
Coulthard       -               1/9  (11.1%)    1/9  (11.1%)
Fisichella      -               -               3/7  (42.9%)
Barrichello     -               -               3/10 (30.0%)
Villeneuve      -               -               1/7  (14.3%)

        Canada winner       Previous round          Team
1978    Gilles Villeneuve   Carlos Reutemann (USA)  Ferrari
1986    Nigel Mansell       Nigel Mansell (France)  Williams
1988    Ayrton Senna        Alain Prost (Mexico)    McLaren
1990    Ayrton Senna        Ayrton Senna (Monaco)   McLaren
1992    Gerhard Berger      Ayrton Senna (Monaco)   McLaren
1999    Mika Hakkinen       Mika Hakkinen (Spain)   McLaren

However, when looking at Montoya's first two efforts in Montreal, things look even worse. Last year the Colombian was doing great in second place when his engine faded and in his debut race he went on the throttle a bit too fast, lost the back end and slammed into the wall to end his race early. Could he reverse his fortunes and win against the odds this weekend? Let's wait and see!