Motor Racing: Serene Villeneuve close to realising his life's ambition

Jacques Villeneuve needs to finish just one point ahead of Michael Schumacher in Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka to win the world championship. David Tremayne on the home straight of a fascinating contest.

To watch them sitting together yesterday afternoon, neither Jacques Villeneuve nor Michael Schumacher appeared to have a care in the world. When the German was asked if Japan's balmy weather would work as much to his advantage as the rain that deluged the Japanese Grand Prix three years ago, he smiled breezily and said: "The good weather suits us both. I can keep my sun-tan, and Jacques can keep his hair light.''

Considering that the world championship is at stake, both men seemed remarkably at ease, a marked contrast to last year when Damon Hill looked as twitchy as Villeneuve was serene.

One year on, Villeneuve looks like a man who expects to deliver. Little more than a month ago Schumacher was the hot favourite to take a third title, as Ferrari's performances pushed him into a comfortable lead in the points table. But the last two races were disastrous. An illegal overtaking move in Austria cost him dearly, and the antics of his brother Ralf removed him from contention in Germany a week later. Villeneuve won both races to vault back into the lead.

``It felt great,'' he said. "Those races put us back where we started the season. We started working well again within the team, and it all fell into place. Michael and Ferrari didn't have good weekends, but then we have had some bad ones too which didn't go to plan, and some that we threw away. It was just a case of going for it. We didn't have a choice.''

Though he has won seven races to Schumacher's four, it has not been an easy season. His brash manner has not always sat well with Williams' very English management team, and there have been frequent head-on clashes over the chassis set-up.

"After the first few races we had been too competitive and we relaxed,'' Villeneuve suggested. "And a lot of work was done on the 1998 car. So it took us time to react when Ferrari suddenly came on. After Monaco there was a lot of pressure, and it became a constant battle.''

Schumacher smiled ironically at this, having recently seen Ferrari's edge blunted. While Villenueve now has the mien of a man who knows just how close he is to realising his ambition, Schumacher looks more like the pragmatist whose gamble has come up one jack short of a royal flush. "I'm going to be driving as hard as I have been all season,'' he said. "But with my other championships I was leading going into the last races. Here I am now the one who has to overtake.''

He said he had prepared for the race by playing strategy games and cards with Ralf, whose first corner move at the Nurburgring might well have lost him the title. Villeneuve, by contrast, went sightseeing.

The odds decidedly favour him, and Schumacher knows better than anyone just what a mountain he has to climb. "Even if we don't win the championship," he said, "we have fulfilled our expectations this season. But if the chance is there, sure I will go for it.'' But he knows that, all things being equal, he can only win the title if Villeneuve loses it.