F1 Unluckiest Seasons - Jacques Villeneuve's 1999 Fall From Grace (BAR-Supertec)

After taking the 1997 title with Williams and enduring a difficult '98 with the same team, Jacques Villeneuve decided a change of scenery was needed. In a decision that could've changed his path in F1, Villeneuve rejected Adrian Newey's offer to join him at Mclaren and rather became driver and part owner of the newly founded BAR team that was set to be based around him. In the end, 1999 proved to be a scoreless year full of mechanical trouble and accidents, with Villeneuve not even managing to get classified for the drivers championship.
➥ Latest Video: Who's the most unlucky driver of the 2023 F1 grid? • Who's the most unlucky...
➥ F1 Unluckiest Seasons: • F1 Unluckiest Seasons
➥ Bar Chart Race: • Most Formula 1 Grands ...
• Follow me on Twitter: / dim871
• Royalty Free Music from Bensound & SugarJo
#f1 #jacquesvilleneuve #f1unluckiestseasons

[@pannocchio]

Jacques still drove like a champion in '99. unfortunately the car wasn't there

[@katethecatgirl]

1999 BAR.
Freaking Quick.
Horrible Reliability.
If It Was Just Reliable Enough...
It Will Be At Most 3RD Fastest Car That Year.

[@tmb8807]

The BAR was not as slow as zero points made it look, but it certainly wasn't 3rd fastest. Jordan were definitely faster (at least in Frentzen's hands). Stewart and Williams were probably a bit quicker on average as well.
BAR could maybe have got 6th if they had been more reliable, ahead of Benetton, which wouldn't have been bad. What screwed them up was saying they were aiming to win their first race. Expectation management failure of massive proportions.

[@MrJoshuas5678]

Do lewis hamilton 2009 season

[@jordanblair4077]

2012 was more unlucky than 2009

[@alexpeak16]

I can't think of any other driver that has suffered eleven straight DNFs in a season. Unless someone will tell me Andrea De Cesaris topped that

[@DimZ_F1]

Of course De Cesaris has done better, with 18 straight retirements! Something he had done twice in his career. For more obscure records you can watch this video: ua-cam.com/video/SM_MKKgb278/v-deo.html&ab_channel=DimZF1

[@alexpeak16]

@@DimZ_F1 Cheers for that. And the stats back it up. In 1987, De Crasharis had an 87.5% retirement rate while Villeneuve had an 81% retirement rate for 1999. Along with the Eau Rouge bet he and Zonta made.

[@zanemarte9877]

If they didn't use Renault engines for that car and had Honda to begin with maybe they could've scored points and had more finishes in their first year. But considering B.A.R came from Tyrrell I expected a struggle from the gecko, but not as bad as Villenueve showed.

[@Ketis1985]

Supertec engine was not the problem. Car itself was just too fragile. EDIT: Car was pretty fast but not reliable enough.

[@zanemarte9877]

​@@Ketis1985 While that may be true but compared to the smaller teams they were beaten by in the constructors that season Minardi, Arrows, Sauber and Prost. The first B.A.R was a s***box, like I said before if they have signed with Honda to begin with for their manufacturer instead of relying on Renault the reliability would've been greater.

[@zanemarte9877]

Look at the other teams that had (Supertec) Renault as their manufacturer in 1999, Williams finished 5th behind Stewart and Jordan (4th and 3rd respectively) because their 2nd driver Zanardi had bad luck all year long from engine failure with only Ralf Schumacher scoring all their points including a 2nd place and two 3rd place podiums at Monza, Australia, and Silverstone respectively. While Benetton only finished 6th place behind all those teams mentioned earlier because of the same problem they had with their Renault engines, and the only real achievement the team got was a 2nd place podium by Fisichella in Canada.