People

Craig Pollock

From the suburbs of Glasgow, Pollock became a teacher at the Jordanhill College of Education. In 1977 he became a physical education and ski instructor at Keith Grammar School in the north of Scotland. In the early 1980s he moved to Switzerland to become director of sport at the exclusive College Beausoleil in Villars, not far from Montreux in Switzerland.It was here that he met the young Jacques Villeneuve, who was enrolled at the exclusive private school after the death of his father in 1982. Villeneuve was a good skier. He had had lessons from the famous Canadian downhiller Steve Podborski and was fearless on the slopes. Pollock befriended the youngster but then moved on, developing a business importing sporting goods into the German and Swiss markets. This led to a job with the Japanese Interhoba Group, owned by a friend of Soichiro Honda. This acted as the European representative of the Honda-owned Suzuka Circuit and also negotiated F1 TV rights in various Asian countries. Pollock became managing director of a subsidiary form called Interhoba Management SA.In 1993, however, Pollock was approached by his former pupil Villeneuve and asked if he would be youngster's manager. Jacques was launching his career in North American Formula Atlantic, with backing from Players. Pollock agreed to become his personal and business manager. Villeneuve finished third in the series but graduated into Indycars the following years with the Players-backed Forsythe team. He won his first Indycar victory at Elkhart Lake and then moved to Team Green in 1995. Villeneuve won the CART Championship and the Indianapolis 500 and at the end of the season joined Williams. Pollock acted as Villeneuve's shadow throughout.Villeneuve's move to Formula 1 with the Williams team in 1996 resulted in four race wins and runner-up in the World Championship, which he won in 1997. By then Pollock has managed to convince British American Tobacco's sponsorship boss Tom Moser to bankroll a Formula 1 team and British American Racing was established. The team bought Tyrrell Racing, signed up Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta and made exaggerated claims about how competitive it was going to be. The debut season in 1999 was a disaster but an engine deal with Honda for 2000 gave the team confidence that things could only get better but progress was slow and at the end of 2001 the BAR shareholders ran out of patience and David Richards was appointed chief executive. Pollock formed PK Racing and will run cars in the CART Champ Car series in 2003.