Jacques Villeneuve OQ is a Canadian professional racing driver and amateur musician who won the 1997 Formula One World Championship with Williams. In addition to Formula One, he has competed in various other forms of motor racing, winning the 1995 Indianapolis 500 and the 1995 PPG Indy Car World Series. He is the son of former Ferrari racing driver Gilles Villeneuve.

On 9 April 1971, Villeneuve was born in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, a small town outside of Montreal in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec. He is the son of snowmobile and future Ferrari racer Gilles Villeneuve and his wife Joann Barthe. Villeneuve has a sister, Melanie, and a half sister Jessica. His uncle, Jacques Sr., whom he was named after also competed in motor racing. Villeneuve spent most of his formative years travelling with the racing fraternity with his parents.

Journalist Gerald Donaldson describes Villeneuve as "engagingly eccentric, opinionated and outspoken" and one who "defied convention and challenged authority, saying exactly what he thought in an era when drivers were expected to express only sweet-talking platitudes." He was popular with the European press for his reliance to speak his mind in a time of political correctness. He publicly bemoaned F1's commercialised and commodified image, the sport's structure, focus on cheaper, younger, corporate groomed drivers and the manufacturing of driver personalities by corporations so as not to impugn their reputation by drivers voicing their thoughts and opinions through the media. Villeneuve frequently dyed his hair in various colours and sported grunge street wear. His behaviour earned him multiple cautions from F1's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), for bringing the series into disrepute. Max Mosley, the association's president, commented that Villeneuve's controversies would benefit him when he was no longer successful.