Dear Rich,

Although Lewis Hamilton is a very different type from Gilles Villeneuve, I would agree with you that his driving style and never-say-die attitude are indeed reminiscent of Gilles. When I interviewed Lewis a couple of years ago, he spoke at length about his childhood worship of Ayrton Senna, and said that he based much of his attitude to the job of Grand Prix driver on Ayrton. But I have long thought there was more of Villeneuve than Senna in the way Hamilton goes racing – not least because I never saw Gilles do anything underhand on a race track, and neither have I ever seen Lewis do anything like that, either. I could not say that of Ayrton.

Keke Rosberg said this of Villeneuve: “Gilles was the hardest bastard I ever raced against, but always scrupulously fair – he was a giant of a driver.” In the same way, Hamilton takes no prisoners, but neither have I ever seen him do anything underhand.

Can’t agree with you, though, about Istanbul 2010 and Imola ’82. There is nothing whatever duplicitous about Jenson Button, and when he closed on Hamilton he didn’t know that Lewis had been told to turn his engine down, and thought it was game on. At Imola, though, the Ferraris, also running one-two in the late laps, were extremely marginal on fuel and Villeneuve, the team’s front-runner all day, was cruising to what he thought was victory, the team having given the ‘Hold’ sign to both drivers. At the very last overtaking point on the last lap, Didier Pironi suddenly sprinted by, and stole the win. Gilles vowed never to speak to him again, and only 13 days later died in qualifying at Zolder.

Dear Martin,

First of all, let me thank you for your compliments. I’m glad you became such an F1 fan – and sad that you no longer are.

I once wrote that Eoin Young, a well-established journalist when I started, and someone who became a close friend, one day said to me that I would make a make a friend of a racing driver, that he would then be killed, and that I would never thereafter look upon racing in quite the same way. It happened to everyone, Young said, and in his case the driver had been Bruce McLaren.

In mine, it was indeed Gilles Villeneuve, and probably it’s true that my attitude changed after that day at Zolder in 1982, in the sense that thereafter I took care not to become so close to another racing driver. It didn’t, of course, keep me from getting on well with drivers, and enjoying their company, but fundamentally I thought that close friendship was probably a bad idea. I was mighty glad, I must say, when such as Mario Andretti and Keke Rosberg, already long-time friends, retired intact. Racing, let’s remember, used to be a great deal more dangerous than it is today.

You ask, though, when did ‘the magic stop’ for me, and I have to tell you that it never did, and it never has. Yes, I was shattered when Gilles was killed, and, yes, although we were never close friends, I was greatly distressed when Ayrton died at Imola a dozen years later. But although I can’t say I like some of the changes which have come to F1 in recent times, I still fundamentally adore it, and I’m sure I always will.