The Argentinian, who will share Vanwall’s Le Mans Hypercar with Villeneuve and Tom Dillmann, believes that the 51-year-old veteran “might be there on lap time” when the 2023 WEC begins with the Sebring 1000 Miles on 17 March.
“It is vitally good to have him on board, he’s a world champion, in fact, and I believe he’s going to be fast as nicely, which is what issues in the long run,” stated Guerrieri.
Villeneuve, Formulation 1 world champion with Williams in 1997, had undertaken an week of intensive health coaching as a part of his preparations for the brand new season previous to going to the Vanwall manufacturing facility for a seat becoming together with his team-mates final week, Guerrieri revealed
“He’s very motivated: he was coming from a full week of coaching, I believe, in Austria,” defined Guerrieri.
“Jacques is again to his {old} motivated days of F1, he was saying, with the individuals who used to coach him.”
Jacques Villeneuve, Vanwall Vandervell LMH, ByKolles Racing
Picture by: Vanwall Group
Villeneuve is making a return to full-time competitors for the primary time since 2019 when he contested the NASCAR Euro Sequence and is again in a prototype 15 years on from his campaigns on the Le Mans 24 Hours with the Peugeot 908 HDi LMP1 turbodiesel in 2007-08.
He faces an absence of mileage within the Vanwall Vandervell 680 heading into the season: his solely time within the automotive got here when he was given a try-out at Barcelona in late November.
Villeneuve was unable to attend the workforce’s ultimate improvement run at Aragon earlier than Christmas, whereas the workforce’s focus since has been on the homologation of the automotive moderately than testing.
Staff boss Colin Kolles has said that Vanwall’s precedence on the official WEC pre-season take a look at, recognized on the Prologue, at Sebring the weekend earlier than the race might be on giving Villeneuve seat time.
“It is going to be robust, a good distance [for him to go], as a result of he has not had a lot mileage within the automotive,” he stated.
“However we have now the Prologue at Sebring, so we’re planning to provide him essentially the most doable mileage and we’ll see how he develops.”
Guerrieri and Dillmann might be each new to Sebring Worldwide Raceway, however Villeneuve has in depth expertise of the Florida venue from his time within the CART Indycar sequence in 1994-95.