Venturi driver Jacques Villeneuve is aiming to prove that he has what it takes to fight against the strong driver line-up in Formula E, as the 44-year old prepares for his first full season back in racing.

The 1997 Formula One World Champion is excited about his return to racing that starts this week in Beijing and the Canadian driver hopes he can steadily improve his performance throughout the season.

“I want to win and see and upward progression in myself from Beijing to London. One of the main ways that I need to keep on top of this is by driving quickly and saving energy at the same time, which is a challenging thing to master.”

“It will be the first time for a while that I will be competing in a full championship series with testing and all the other elements that make up a full season drive. I have been driving some cars here and there over the last few years, but this will be my first full season in a while,” said Villeneuve.

The former Formula One driver also applauded the sport for having such a high calibre of drivers within each team. The ex-Peugeot Le Mans driver believes it will be extra special to him if he can win against them.

“It is great to be driving against drivers that are of such a high calibre and have raced across many different types of motorsport. Some of the drivers have experience in Formula One. I would like to think I have a little bit more experience than them in it( he laughs), but it is great to have so much talent in the field and it will make winning that much cooler.”

Venturi came away from the first season of Formula E without a win, but they found themselves in situations where they should have won races, but costly errors stopped the team from picking up any victories.

However, going into the second season of the Formula E Championship, Villeneuve is confident that the team has learnt from their mistakes so they can capitalise on the mistakes of others.

“Venturi have restructured the team a lot to avoid the errors that occurred in the previous season. For such a young team they know they could have challenged the big boys like E.Dams and Audi Sport ABT, but mistakes cost them victories. So this season we want to limit the number of mistakes and fight for victories this time.”

Villeneuve will line up on the grid in Beijing for his first full championship season since competing in the World Endurance Championship with Peugeot in 2008.