Former F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve gets married at Las Vegas Grand Prix paddock

Former F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve married his partner in the Las Vegas Grand Prix paddock on Thursday night (16 November). The official F1 Las Vegas X/Twitter account confirmed the news on 17 November, sharing photos of the couple, with the caption: “Married in Vegas: F1 style.” A few days before the wedding, F1 also released a short clip of the chapel created inside the circuit featuring the slogan “Race to the Altar”. Couples and race fans can now say “I do” at the chapel through a special wedding package. The space is embellished with racing-themed decorations and the couples that do get a chance to get married there will be presented with a bouquet of roses inspired by racing cars. “Love in the fast lane. Introducing the first-ever #F1 wedding chapel.” the caption in the post said. In another post featured on F1 Las Vegas’s Instagram stories, Villeneuve’s partner Giulia is seen dazzling her guests wearing a classic white gown as she walks down the aisle. The short video also shows the happy couple posing for photos with friends and family members. Former Williams engineer, Jock Clear, was reportedly Villeneuve’s best man for the occasion and the newlyweds enjoyed their moment together as an Elvis impersonator sang ‘Here Comes The Bride.’ Villeneuve won the Formula One World Championship with Williams in 1997. According to Planet F1, the champion made his comeback earlier this year - 17 years on from his final race. Speaking to Planet F1 in an exclusive interview back in February, the champion said: “I’ve never been retired!” “So it’s not even semi-retirement. I know a lot of people think that I haven’t been racing. After F1, I moved to North America to focus on that. “Ever since, I’ve been doing just piecemeal races – never full championships. Ice racing in France, V8 Supercars in Australia, Nascar, I did some Formula E, EuroNascar, the Indy 500… so I actually never retired, it was just very complicated to get full-time race seats, mostly because I was busy building up a family,” he added. Villeneuve’s wedding came hours before a chaotic first practice session was abandoned and the second session delayed due to Carlos Sainz striking a manhole cover which destroyed the bottom of his car - and resulted in him getting a ten-place grid penalty for Sunday’s race. Detailing what had gone wrong an FIA spokesman said: “Following inspection, it was the concrete frame around a manhole cover that has failed. We now need to check all of the other manhole covers which will take some time – we will be discussing with the local circuit engineering team about the length of time it will take to resolve.” The on-track action eventually resumed two-and-a-half hours late and finished up at 4am local time - after fans had been told to leave at 1:30am in what was an all-round disaster of an opening night. Read More F1 enters new Las Vegas dawn with disaster on opening night Watch: Sparks fly as Sainz’s Ferrari hits drain cover on Las Vegas F1 circuit Empty grandstands at Las Vegas GP as chaotic practice session takes place at 3am Carlos Sainz handed ‘ridiculous’ penalty after drain cover crash at Las Vegas GP Las Vegas GP resumes in front of empty stands as fans sent home at 1:30am Ferrari team boss fumes over damage to Sainz car: ‘Just unacceptable’