Racing numbers are important to drivers and riders, at least in recent years; Lewis Hamilton will always be 44, Nigel Mansell will always be associated with red 5, Valentino Rossi is number 46, and so on, but one number was a kind of tradition in the late 1970s and that number was 27, as worn on the car of Gilles Villeneuve.
He might have won only six Grands Prix before he tragically lost his life in a qualifying crash in 1982, but the the legend that is Gilles Villeneuve looms large in the history of Formula One. He was always spectacular to watch and would never give up if there was a position to be made up. Always fiercely loyal and true to his word, he was incensed when team mate Didier Pironi betrayed his trust by overtaking Villeneuve in the dying moments of the 1982 San Marino Grand Prix after the team had earlier told the two drivers to maintain position as they were running first and second. Villeneuve swore that he would never talk to Pironi again and he never did: in qualifying for the next race, at Zolder, in Belgium, his car was sent flying when he hit a slowing car and he was killed instantly. The greatest natural talent of the era was gone, but never forgotten. The Twenty Seven bag was created in his honour.
