Oscar Piastri’s bright start to the 2025 Formula One season seems to have hit a bump and former F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve has thrown in a fiery opinion about what he thinks is the reason behind it, and the statement has stirred plenty of chatter across the paddock as the fight for the 2025 title tightens heading into the final few rounds.
What Is Jacques Villeneuve’s Tough Verdict About Oscar Piastri?
The Canadian said that the young Australian has already “reached his limit” in the tense title battle against teammate Lando Norris and Red Bull rival Max Verstappen. Villeneuve believes that Piastri’s early-season brilliance may have hidden some weaknesses, as after his impressive win at the Dutch Grand Prix, Piastri had built a 34-point cushion over Norris and looked like the next big thing in Formula One, but since then, his momentum has faded, and things have changed fast.
Since that victory, Piastri hasn’t finished on the podium once, whereas Norris has found his rhythm again and reclaimed the championship lead after a dominant win in Mexico City, and hence Villeneuve thinks the turning point is not in the car but in Piastri’s mindset.
“We didn’t have an extremely fantastic Lando early in the season, not the Lando we had at the end of last year and we kept saying, ‘oh, that’s because Piastri has stepped up, he’s now on Lando’s pace and even quicker,” Villeneuve told Sky Sports. “But was it actually Piastri stepping up or Lando that just wasn’t on it? He kept saying he wasn’t very comfortable with the car. And maybe that made Piastri complacent a bit.”
“We get Baku and we get Max winning everything. And Lando stepped up. Lando is driving faster and better than he’s been all season. Piastri is not stepping up. He was already at his limit,” he added.
Villeneuve went on to explain that once a driver is forced to find those extra tenths of a second, small cracks start to show, “When you do that, when you have to go that extra two tenths, and suddenly, you find problems in the cars that did not exist.”
Piastri Under a Lot of Pressure
Piastri is one of the sport’s most promising young drivers as the 24-year-old from Melbourne joined McLaren in 2023 and immediately impressed fans with his calm attitude and sharp driving style, and his rise through junior categories was equally impressive, winning Formula 3 and Formula 2 titles in back-to-back years before reaching F1.
But Formula 1 has a way of testing even the best, as in recent races, Piastri’s calm demeanor has been tested under pressure, and his crash in Azerbaijan’s qualifying and main race didn’t help, while a messy Sprint race move in Austin wiped out both McLaren cars.
These errors have cost him valuable points and confidence, and allowed Norris to edge ahead by a single point.
READ MORE: F1 Veteran Exposes McLaren’s Balance Shift That’s Holding Back Oscar Piastri
Former driver and commentator Martin Brundle believes the struggles began in Azerbaijan, “Baku would have scattered his brain. That was a very difficult weekend for him with twice in the barriers and the jump start, and it seems to have gone off the rails. Something’s happened in Oscar’s head.” McLaren has already made it clear before that both drivers have equal support and the team isn’t favoring one over the other, and they’re counting on Piastri to bounce back in the next few races.
With four races left, including the upcoming Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Piastri has a chance to prove that Villeneuve’s words are nothing more than noise, and whether he can regain that spark from earlier in the season will decide his status in the driver’s title battle.