1997 F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve believes the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was a \u201cwake-up call\u201d for Lando Norris in the title battle.<\/p>\n
The race in Baku saw then-championship leader Oscar Piastri crash into the barrier in a self-inflicted mistake on the opening lap.<\/p>\n
It presented a major opportunity for Norris, who entered the race 31 points behind Piastri in the standings.<\/p>\n
However, Norris could climb no higher than seventh place in a difficult grand prix, ensuring he only took six points out of Piastri’s margin.<\/p>\n
Norris has continued to outscore Piastri at every race since, and following a dominant drive to victory last time out in Mexico City, he moved back to the lead of the standings for the first time since April.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the Sky F1 podcast, Villeneuve hailed Norris’ performance and believes his recent run of performances stems from the difficult result in Baku.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a statement weekend,\u201d Villeneuve said.<\/p>\n
\u201c[It was like] the weekends we are used to seeing from Max. We saw a little bit from Lando last year when he was fighting Max.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess the wake-up call for him was Baku, not reacting, not capitalising on a bad weekend from Oscar.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think that put some cold water in his face, and he came back stronger, as if he was fighting Max last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
With four rounds remaining in the campaign, Norris now leads Piastri by one point in the standings.<\/p>\n
Villeneuve has suggested Norris will be \u201cunbeatable\u201d en route to the title should he maintain his current form.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s on a roll,\u201d he said. \u201cHe made a step in Singapore, another step in Austin, and he was marvellous in Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a driver gets in that zone, they become unbeatable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1997 F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve believes the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was a \u201cwake-up call\u201d for Lando Norris in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-252093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252093","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=252093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}