Speaking on Sky Sports\u2019 The F1 Show ahead of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Villeneuve said Piastri\u2019s inability to keep pace with his McLaren teammate Lando Norris in recent weeks stems from the fact that he was already performing at the limit earlier in the season. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have an extremely fantastic Lando early in the season, not the Lando we had at the end of last year,\u201d Villeneuve explained. \u201cAnd we kept saying, \u2018oh, that\u2019s because Piastri has stepped up, he\u2019s now on Lando\u2019s pace and even quicker.\u2019 But was it actually Piastri stepping up or Lando that just wasn\u2019t on it? He kept saying he wasn\u2019t very comfortable with the car. And maybe that made Piastri complacent a bit. When all you have to fight is your team-mate, maybe you don\u2019t push to that last limit, that last tenth of a second.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Piastri had appeared on course for a maiden Drivers\u2019 Championship title when he won the Dutch Grand Prix in late August \u2014 his seventh win in 15 rounds \u2014 to move 34 points clear of Norris. But since then, the 24-year-old has failed to win in five consecutive races and hasn\u2019t finished on the podium in the last four, allowing Norris to reclaim the championship lead with a dominant victory at the Mexico City Grand Prix.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Villeneuve believes the turning point came when Norris rediscovered his best form. \u201cSuddenly, we get Baku and we get Max winning everything. And Lando stepped up. Lando is driving faster and better than he\u2019s been all season,\u201d he said. \u201cPiastri is not stepping up. He was already at his limit. And when you do that, when you have to go that extra two tenths, and suddenly, you find problems in the car that did not exist.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The former world champion suggested that the errors creeping into Piastri\u2019s driving \u2014 including crashes in both qualifying and the race in Azerbaijan, and a failed overtake that took out both McLaren drivers in Austin\u2019s Sprint \u2014 were symptoms of a driver trying too hard. \u201cWhen you drive within the limit, the car is perfect. It\u2019s easy, you drive, you save your tires. And suddenly, you have to go a couple of tenths faster. You can\u2019t drive the car anymore. Everything is wrong. You don\u2019t know why,\u201d Villeneuve said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
He dismissed the idea that McLaren\u2019s machinery was to blame for the shift in form. \u201cThe McLaren car hasn\u2019t evolved that much, so there\u2019s no reason for it to be driven differently. Same tyres, they don\u2019t change. Sometimes they\u2019re softer, sometimes they\u2019re not. The track is warmer and so on, but there isn\u2019t that big of a difference,\u201d he said. \u201cIt just takes your team-mate to step up a little bit. And you\u2019re realising, \u2018oh, how do I do that?\u2019 And suddenly, you drive tensed up, nothing works, and that\u2019s it. It gets in your head. And you just get slower and slower and slower, and you start inventing setups that don\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n
The former world champion suggested that the errors creeping into Piastri\u2019s driving \u2014 including crashes in both qualifying and the race in Azerbaijan, and a failed overtake that took out both McLaren drivers in Austin\u2019s Sprint \u2014 were symptoms of a driver trying too hard. \u201cWhen you drive within the limit, the car is perfect. It\u2019s easy, you drive, you save your tires. And suddenly, you have to go a couple of tenths faster. You can\u2019t drive the car anymore. Everything is wrong. You don\u2019t know why,\u201d Villeneuve said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
With just four rounds remaining, starting with this weekend\u2019s Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Piastri trails Norris by a single point in what has become one of the most tightly contested title battles in recent memory.<\/p>\r\n\r\n