Jacques Villeneuve Finally Explains the Story Behind His ‘Embarrassing’ NASCAR Champion Patch at Daytona 500

Jacques Villeneuve is set to start his maiden Daytona 500 this weekend. However, when he arrived at the track, eagle-eyed fans noticed something. Apparently, he had the word ‘champion’ emblazoned on his racing suit. Of course, the Canadian is an F1 champion, not a NASCAR one. So, he was under the impression that it was alright to have the tag. Unfortunately for him, NASCAR did not care about technicalities and asked him to cover it up.

He said, “Everything was last minute, so I told them to make the suit. You have all the right patches for us? ‘Yeah, yeah don’t worry we’ll put everything’. I get here and I thought that was a patch that everybody had. Until, yeah that that was a little bit embarrassing. I should have added ‘F1’ in front of it or something, then it wouldn’t have been embarrassing.”

Jacques Villeneuve is hoping to perform well in his first Daytona 500

Obviously, the veteran driver is not expecting any miracles during the race. Instead, his focus will be on trying to make it through the race in one piece. This is largely because he knows that spare parts for the Next Gen cars are in short supply; no driver can afford to ding up their cars too much.

According to reports, the Daytona 500 will not be Villeneuve’s only rodeo. There will be other races where he will have another crack in the #27 car, Meanwhile, Loris Hezemans will share the car with the Canadian, as both drivers compete in select races. This was Jacques Villeneuve’s second attempt at qualifying for the Daytona 500 and his first successful one. Last time around, he failed to make it for the 2008 edition. Meanwhile, his best-ever finish in the Cup Series was 21st place at the 2007 race at the Talladega Superspeedway.

READ MORE: Jacques Villeneuve Joins the ‘NASCAR Fan Club of F1 Drivers’ Alongside Raikkonen and Montoya: “You Can’t Beat the Feeling in NASCAR”