A new theory on Oscar Piastri’s late-season slump in form has emerged with former F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve suggesting the Australian has simply reached his limit.
The star Aussie driver has relinquished a commanding lead in the race to be crowned world champion and now trails McLaren teammate Lando Norris by one point.
Piastri had led Norris by as many as 34 points given he won seven of the opening 15 rounds, but the 24-year-old has not been on the podium since Monza in early September, while his British peer has surged.
Norris’ recent victory in Mexico put him back in the lead for the first time since April.
Creeping up behind them both is defending champion Max Verstappen, who in August was more than 100 points off the lead and looked resigned to give up his hopes of a fifth straight title.
With four races left on the 2025 calendar, Villeneuve simplified the Piastri issue.
Amid conspiracy theories of preferential treatment towards Norris by McLaren, the 1997 champion said what is happening to Piastri happens in all sports.
“You have teams that will have an average season – I’m not talking racing now, in any sport – then you get closer and closer to finals, to the playoffs, and suddenly they’re the best team out there,” Villeneuve said on The F1 Show.
“You see it in every sport. And why? For what reason? They were average all season, and teams that have been winning every game, they collapse.
“It happens all the time.
“We didn’t have an extremely fantastic Lando early in the season, not the Lando we had that last at the end of last year.
“We kept saying, ‘oh, that’s because Piastri has stepped up, he’s now on Lando’s pace, and even quicker’.
“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.
“When all you have to fight is your teammate, maybe you don’t push to that last limit, that last tenth of a second.
“Suddenly we get Baku and we get Max (Verstappen) that’s winning everything, and Lando stepped up.
“Lando is driving faster and better than he’s been all season, and Piastri is not stepping up. He was already at his limit.
“When you have to go that extra two tenths – and Martin (Brundle) will have had the same issues when he was racing – certainly you find problems in the car that did not exist.
“When you drive within the limit, the car is perfect. It’s easy. You drive, you save your tyres, and suddenly you have to go a couple of tenths faster, you can’t drive the car anymore. Everything is wrong.”
Next up on the calendar is the Brazil Grand Prix which will air ar 4am AEDT on Monday November 10.