Villeneuve, 42, revving up for Indy comeback this season

INDIANAPOLIS — Jacques Villeneuve is ready to make an IndyCar comeback.

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports said Wednesday it has hired Villeneuve to race in this year’s Indianapolis 500, 19 years after the Canadian driver first drank the milk in Victory Lane.

“IndyCar is growing again and that’s why last year when I started watching races again, every time I watched I felt almost angry I wasn’t there,” the 1995 race winner said on a satellite hookup from France during a news conference held at the team’s Indy headquarters.

At age 42, Villeneuve seemed content being a television analyst, musician and RallyCross driver.

But when Schmidt Peterson made a serious offer, he couldn’t refuse. The 500 is scheduled for May 25. As an Indy rookie in 1994, Villeneuve qualified fourth and finished second to Al Unser Jr., and was named the race’s rookie of the year.

The next season, the reigning CART rookie of the year was even better.

He qualified fifth at Indy, forced Scott Goodyear into a costly mistake on the final restart and eventually held off Christian Fittipaldi to become the first and only Canadian winner of the race.

Villeneuve completed all 400 laps at Indy in those two starts and won the 1995 CART title, too.

But after starting 33 races, winning six poles and five races in two IndyCar seasons, Villeneuve headed to Europe and joined Formula One.