Hard habit to break for JV
Jacques Villeneuve admirers would claim that the French-Canadian is a true hero of motorsport, pointing to his Indianapolis 500 win and CART title in 1995, his stunning debut Formula 1 pole position in '96 and his World Championship success of '97, as well as his extraordinary pass around the outside of Michael Schumacher in the '96 Portuguese Grand Prix.
Jacques Villeneuve detractors would claim that the son of the legendary Gilles Villeneuve is an average talent, flattered by the vastly superior Williams equipment in which he made heavy weather of winning the '97 title, and that his later form with BAR and Sauber - and subsequent ditching from both teams - showed him in a more accurate light.
The truth is probably somewhere in between, but there aren't many Jacques Villeneuve in-betweeners: he is one of those drivers who tends to polarise opinion.
And, once again, the now 38-year-old Villeneuve could be on the verge of sparking off a whole new series of 'Does he belong in F1?' debates, if the nascent Stefan GP team gains a late entry for 2010, and if Villeneuve is selected as one of the drivers.
Like fellow ex-F1/Indycar champion Nigel Mansell, Villeneuve has never been so careless as to announce his retirement since his last appearance in F1. And in common with fellow BAR old boys Anthony Davidson and Takuma Sato, it appears as though Villeneuve finds the F1 drug a very difficult one to go cold turkey on.
With both Davidson and Sato now kicking the habit and finding gainful employment in other spheres of the sport, it seems ironic that Villeneuve - a driver who entered F1 several years before them - could be the one who hangs in there after they've gone.
It's not as if Villeneuve hasn't tried his hand in other categories. His current Castrol Rankings position is 1294th, earned off the back of a non-finish in last year's Spa 24 Hours in a Mosler, and a fourth place, at the wheel of a Toyota, in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at the Montreal Grand Prix circuit.
And he was more than 900 places higher in the spring of 2009, thanks to second place in the '08 Le Mans 24 Hours in a Peugeot 908 HDI, a win in the Spa 1000Km the month before, plus moderate results in a handful of outings in Speedcar, the all-star stock-car series that ran for two seasons in the Middle East.
There have been several other dabbles with NASCAR since that July 2006 day at Hockenheim when he spun out of a grand prix for the last time, and then found that the BMW Sauber team was going to give test driver Robert Kubica a race opportunity at his expense. (Ironic that Kubica's only GP win to date should be on the circuit in Montreal named after Villeneuve's father).
If nothing else, even his detractors must have some admiration for his persistence. On the other hand his fans will be delighted to see their hero back.
