It will be the first time the 51-year-old has driven a near-modern F1 car since his last race with BMW Sauber at Hockenheim in 2006.
The chance came about through his association with broadcaster Canal+ and is part of the 25th anniversary celebrations of his world title win with a Renault-powered Williams in 1997.
Villeneuve drove for the Enstone team in the last three races of the 2004 season alongside current Alpine driver Fernando Alonso, earning two 10th places and one 11th. He also worked with Alpine boss Ottmar Schaffnauer in their BAR Honda days.
The A521 is the car raced by Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon last season and used this year for young driver development tests by Oscar Piastri and Jack Doohan.
“It happened through the connection with Canal+, the French team and French TV and I won 25 years ago with Renault,” Villeneuve told Motorsport.com.
“So this is an outing because of that. But this is last year’s car at Monza and you can’t upset them, so it will be proper laps.
“I did three races with Fernando, so I have a past with this team and [current sporting director] Alan Perman was my engineer.
“It’s super, super exciting. it’s crazy It will be good to know what these cars are too. I tried the simulator. Modern cars are not impressive at slow speed, but they are amazing at high speed.
“I just have to make sure I have a good seat. It’s going to be hell because the G forces are going to be incredible. The good thing is that you have a long straight line. So you can physically relax!”
Fernando Alonso, Alpine A521
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport images
Villeneuve admitted that steering is more complicated now than when he last raced in Formula 1 in 2006, but he is not worried.
“Yes, but everything becomes a habit. I’ve always been a gamer, not just in racing games, and once you get into the habit, you can do anything.
“When it’s not a habit, it becomes difficult when you have to start looking at the wheel and thinking, oh, what does it mean that you don’t have time. But when it becomes a habit, it’s second nature, then it becomes easy.”
Villeneuve emphasized that he is still an active driver: “I never stopped wanting to do this. So my goal lately has been to get to NASCAR. After doing Daytona this year, it made me want to try and get a season going. But I’m so busy with TV right now that it’s kind of blocking out everything else.”
Canal+ commentator Julien Febreau, himself an experienced racer, will also get the chance to drive the A521 at Monza, while the team will also run this year’s A522 for a filming day.
Villeneuve and Febreau will warm up for their Monza tracks by testing a 2012 Lotus E20 ‘experience driving’ car at Paul Ricard this week.