The biggest gaps overturned in modern F1 history shows the improbable task for Verstappen<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cAzerbaijan has actually kept or put Verstappen in the hunt and Verstappen doesn\u2019t crack under pressure and he will put an extreme amount of pressure on the two McLaren drivers and the team,\u201d the pundit told a betting platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very bad show both from Piastri and from Norris, even more so from Piastri.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could tell that Piastri was on the edge all weekend for some reason. His driving was erratic from Friday onwards, the mistake in qualifying the mistake on the grid followed by a mistake right away on the first lap he wasn\u2019t in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really odd because he\u2019s got quite a big lead. But we have often said being the hunted, being the prey is a very difficult pressure to carry. And it\u2019s really affected him, this weekend anyway, which is crazy. Now compared to Norris, he didn\u2019t lose many points.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just need another weekend like this, and the pressure is on even more. We\u2019ve always perceived Piastri as being this cold, immovable block. But that\u2019s not what we saw this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
That being said, Villeneuve has admitted that it isn\u2019t uncommon for any driver to have a major disaster of a weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cPiastri\u2019s crash showed that his bubble there was a bit burst,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it a one-off? Everyone can have a moment of down like this. It doesn\u2019t matter how strong you are.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven Max has had some weekends where we\u2019re like, OK, maybe that one was a little over the top!\u201d<\/p>\n
However, in the case of Baku, it wasn\u2019t just Piastri making mistakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe curious thing is it was the two drivers and the team,\u201d the driver told a betting platform.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole thing. Not just one aspect. There was no sparkle particularly from Norris all weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis mistakes were less costly because he didn\u2019t hit the wall, but he should have qualified at least P2. Then he just went a little bit wide, messed up and then had a lacklustre race. It was incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
What will truly define the scope of the championship is how Piastri is able to recover from this downturn in performance. As Villeneuve notes, even champions can fall into a rut. What defines those drivers as champions, though, is their ability to rally their strength despite the frustration, returning to the track level-headed and ready to fight.<\/p>\n
Villeneuve points out that Piastri is normally immovable. But can he return to that state now that he\u2019s been pushed?<\/p>\n
Read next:\u00a0Oscar Piastri \u2018isn\u2019t invincible\u2019 as Australian racing icon drops Norris claim<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve has argued that championship leader Oscar Piastri\u2019s Azerbaijan Grand Prix crash has \u201cburst\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,54428,817,813,816,818,13207,825,913,44,2333,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-171086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-azerbaijan-grand-prix","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-home-page","15":"tag-jacques-villeneuve","16":"tag-max-verstappen","17":"tag-mclaren","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-oscar-piastri","20":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}