Jacques Villeneuve Gives “Feeling Terrible” Verdict on Oscar Piastri’s 2025 Season

Jacques Villeneuve claimed that Oscar Piastri was going to feel terrible following his title loss in the 2025 season.

Jacques Villeneuve Gives “Feeling Terrible” Verdict on Oscar Piastri’s 2025 Season

Oscar Piastri (via F1), Jacques Villeneuve (via motorsport)

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Oscar Piastri lost out on the 2025 season driver’s title under some disappointing circumstances. The Aussie led the title standings for quite some time in the year, but still couldn’t win it in the end.

To make matters worse, Piastri finished in P3, much farther from his championship-winning position. As such, the 1997 F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve has guessed how the 24-year-old might be feeling following his title loss.

Since the beginning of the season, Oscar Piastri seemed to be the favorite to win the title following his dominant race wins. However, in the final stages, he suffered from a drastic performance slump and even DNF’ed in a couple of races, which further destroyed his title chances. As such, in a year where the title was for Piastri to win with ease, he ended up finishing P3, which would be disheartening for him.

Jacques Villeneuve, who has certainly faced many moments of lows in his F1 career, has pondered over how Oscar Piastri might be feeling currently. Though Villeneuve was able to achieve one of the greatest achievements in F1 after winning the title in 1997, Piastri was unable to do so. As such, the Canadian highlighted that the 24-year-old was definitely feeling terrible as he had the title win in his hand.

Further, Jacques Villeneuve noted that Oscar Piastri was controlling the title battle but disappeared mysteriously and figured out the issues too late. Although the Aussie seemed to perform better in the final couple of races, sadly, it wasn’t enough to even grant him a runner-up finish. Villeneuve recalled this fact and insisted that it was far too late for Piastri to recover his lost form and perform better in the 2025 season.

Terrible. He must be feeling terrible because he had the championship in hand, He was controlling it and it all disappeared and by the time he realised it was disappearing it was too late to react. He got speed in the last two races but it was too late. It was just way too late.

Jacques Villeneuve said on the High Performance Podcast.

Jacques Villeneuve labels Oscar Piastri as the ‘new upcoming young driver’

Oscar Piastri has only started racing full-time in F1 three years ago. The Aussie managed to finish P4 in the 2024 season and almost won the driver’s title this year around.

Oscar Piastri (via IMAGO)
Oscar Piastri (via IMAGO)

As such, despite the recent times being tough for Piastri, Jacques Villeneuve is confident that the 24-year-old has many years in Formula 1 left to succeed. The Canadian believes that he could be the new upcoming young driver and what it would mean for McLaren if he wins the title.

Jacques Villeneuve reckoned that he would have made a great image for himself if he won the driver’s title with McLaren in just his third year. Meanwhile, Lando Norris had been with the team for quite some time and achieved success after many years. As such, it was overall great for McLaren if either driver won the title. Sadly, Piastri couldn’t quite best his British counterpart and lost the title at the end.

Piastri is this new upcoming young driver, great image if he wins. Norris is there for a while, been working with the team. So either would have been good, but ultimately he might start thinking like this and might start believing it, but that would be far-fetched.

Jacques Villeneuve noted.

The 2026 season could be the one where McLaren struggles to keep up with their dominant force of the ground-effect era. The new regulations could prove to be difficult for them. Hence, the team must nail the development in the first year itself, as it could set their pace for the remainder of the regulations.

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