About Gilles Villeneuve
The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a motor racing circuit in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the venue for the FIA Formula One Canadian Grand Prix. It has hosted the Canadian Grand Prix for 41 years. The venue is located on Notre Dame Island in the Parc Jean-Drapeau in the Saint Lawrence River. The circuit is named after Canadian racing driver Gilles Villeneuve.
This semi-permanent street circuit is famous for its high-speed straights broken up by chicanes and heavy braking zones. It is a "stop-and-go" track that is particularly hard on brakes and demands excellent traction. The proximity of the walls leaves no margin for error, punishing even the smallest mistakes.
The most distinctive feature is the "Wall of Champions" at the exit of the final chicane, named after three former F1 champions (Damon Hill, Michael Schumacher, and Jacques Villeneuve) crashed into it during the 1999 race. The picturesque setting, combined with the often unpredictable weather and enthusiastic crowd, makes it one of the most popular races of the season.
The venue occupies land shaped almost entirely by human intervention: Île Notre-Dame was created between 1965 and 1967 as a platform for the Expo 67 world's fair, using bedrock and clay extracted during the excavation of Montreal's newly opened Yellow metro line. Ownership of the circuit remains with the City of Montreal, which in 2019 signed a 10-year hosting agreement with Formula One Management valued at 108 million Canadian dollars, jointly funded by Quebec provincial contributions and the federal Canadian Heritage department. The circuit's naming was proposed by then-mayor Jean Drapeau within 48 hours of Gilles Villeneuve's death at Zolder in Belgium on 8 May 1982, and was ratified by unanimous council vote on the following Tuesday—one of the fastest municipal renamings in Canadian history.