Joseph Gilles Henri Villeneuve (French pronunciation: [ʒil vil.nœv]; 18 January 1950 – 8 May 1982) was a Canadian racing driver, who competed in Formula One from 1977 to 1982. Villeneuve was runner-up in the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in 1979 with Ferrari, and won six Grands Prix across six seasons.

A racing enthusiast from an early age, Villeneuve started his career in snowmobile racing across his native province of Quebec. He soon progressed to open-wheel racing, winning the regional Formula Ford championship in 1973 before graduating to Formula Atlantic, where he won two Canadian Championships in 1976 and 1977, and the American Championship in 1976. Villeneuve made his Formula One debut with McLaren at the 1977 British Grand Prix, impressing Enzo Ferrari, who signed him with Ferrari for 1978. He made an early debut for the team at the Canadian Grand Prix after the departure of World Champion Niki Lauda, and was involved in a collision with Ronnie Peterson which killed two bystanders at the season-ending Japanese Grand Prix. Amidst struggles with Michelin's radial tyres the following year, Villeneuve took his maiden podium in Austria before winning his home Grand Prix in Canada. He won three races in 1979, ultimately finishing the championship runner-up to teammate Jody Scheckter by four points. Villeneuve earned widespread acclaim for his performances, including his duel with René Arnoux at the French Grand Prix. After a winless season for Ferrari with the 312T5 in 1980, Villeneuve took back-to-back wins at the Monaco and Spanish Grands Prix in 1981, earning further acclaim for his defensive tactics at the latter.

During qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder, Villeneuve died as the result of a collision with Jochen Mass. He achieved six wins, two pole positions, eight fastest laps, and 13 podiums in Formula One. At the time of his death, Villeneuve was widely popular in the motorsport community and has since become an iconic figure in the history of the sport. The Circuit Île Notre-Dame in Montreal—home of the Canadian Grand Prix since his 1978 victory—was renamed the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve upon his death. His son, Jacques, became the first World Drivers' Champion from Canada in 1997. Alongside Jacques, Villeneuve is an inductee of the Canadian Motor Sports Hall of Fame and Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.

Villeneuve was born January 18, 1950, to piano-tuner Seville Villeneuve (1926–1987) and his wife Georgette (née Coupal; 1925–2008) at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu in the province of Quebec, Canada and grew up in Berthierville. In 1970 he married Joann Barthe, with whom he had two children, Jacques and Mélanie. During his early career Villeneuve took his family on the road with him in a motorhome during the racing season, a habit which he continued to some extent during his Formula One career. At the time of his death Gilles was reportedly considering divorce from Joann: he had long been having an extramarital affair with a Torontonian woman.

Villeneuve often claimed to have been born in 1952. By the time he made his debut in Formula One, he was already 27 years old and subtracted two years from his age to avoid being considered too old to find success at the highest level of motorsport. His younger brother Jacques also had a successful racing career in Formula Atlantic, Can-Am and CART. Gilles' son, also named Jacques, won the Indianapolis 500 and CART championships in 1995 and became Formula One World Champion in 1997.

Villeneuve started competitive driving in local drag-racing events, entering his road car, a modified 1967 Ford Mustang. He soon became bored by this and entered the Jim Russell Racing School at Circuit Mont-Tremblant to gain a racing licence. He then had a very successful season in Quebec regional Formula Ford, running his own two-year-old car and winning seven of the ten races he entered. The next year he progressed to Formula Atlantic, where he would compete for four seasons, running his own car again for one of those seasons. He won his first Atlantic race in 1975 at Gimli Motorsport Park in heavy rain. In 1976, teamed with Chris Harrison's Ecurie Canada and factory March race engineer Ray Wardell, he dominated the season by winning all but one of the races and taking the US and Canadian titles. He won the Canadian championship again in 1977.

Money was an issue in Villeneuve's early career. He was a professional racing driver from his late teens, with no other income. In the first few years the bulk of his income in fact came from snowmobile racing, where he was extremely successful. He could demand appearance money as well as race money, especially after winning the 1974 World Championship Snowmobile Derby. His second season in Formula Atlantic was part-sponsored by his snowmobile manufacturer, Skiroule. He credited some of his success to his snowmobiling days:

Every winter, you would reckon on three or four big spills — and I'm talking about being thrown on to the ice at 100 miles per hour. Those things used to slide a lot, which taught me a great deal about control. And the visibility was terrible! Unless you were leading, you could see nothing, with all the snow blowing about. Good for the reactions — and it stopped me having any worries about racing in the rain.