Villeneuve Labels Piastri Baku Lock-Up a Rookie Error
Jacques Villeneuve has slammed the Oscar Piastri Baku lock up as a rookie error, after the McLaren driver dropped out of the points to finish thirteenth in Azerbaijan. Piastri had looked sharp all weekend, including qualifying third in Baku, but a heavy lock-up at Turn 1 wrecked his afternoon.
Villeneuve, the 1997 world champion, did not hold back. He called the moment a rookie error, and his verdict was picked up in a Crash.net report on Baku comments that also carried Piastri’s own account of what happened. The lock-up cost Piastri a likely points finish, a frustrating result for a team still fighting on both the drivers’ and constructors’ fronts.
Piastri Explains ‘Weird’ Double Front Lock-Up in Azerbaijan
Piastri gave his own account to reporters after the race, and it was far from a driver making excuses. He said the lock-up caught him completely off guard while he was defending on an unfamiliar line.
“I need to look, because it was a bit weird just locking up both fronts instantly like that. I didn’t think I did anything spectacular. Obviously I was on a different line to what I normally would be, defending. So I don’t know if I was on a crown in the road or something, but it certainly was a surprise to me. Once Max [Verstappen] got ahead, I was never going to get back past, but it would have been interesting to see if I could keep [Isack] Hadjar behind. To be honest, it probably would have been tough. It’s hard to tell on the medium because they were pretty heavily flat-spotted, but I didn’t feel anywhere near as good on the medium as I did on the soft. I think potentially we could have been P4. One thing is saying ‘we could have been’, and one thing is where you actually finish.”
That last line matters. Piastri is clear it is his own opinion, not a claim on a result that never happened. The flat-spotted tyres, caused by the lock-up itself, left him short of pace for the rest of the stint.
McLaren Pace Struggles and Norris Turn 1 Incident
Piastri was not the only McLaren driver short of pace in Baku. Lando Norris also had a tough afternoon, despite the team running an updated car that had promised more in qualifying trim.
Norris locked up at Turn 1 early in the race and was forced onto the escape road, losing ground he never recovered. His race ended soon after in a collision involving Franco Colapinto. It capped a bruising stretch for Norris, who was still moving past a radio complaint after Monza before Baku brought a fresh setback.
Norris had earlier suggested Colapinto deserved a race ban. On Monday he issued a public apology for those comments, closing out a difficult week for the Briton away from the cockpit as well as inside it.
McLaren Focus on Tyre Understanding Ahead of Next Outing
Baku leaves McLaren with plenty to review. Both cars struggled for outright pace across the weekend, and Piastri’s flat-spotted mediums point to a wider tyre understanding problem rather than a single bad moment at Turn 1.
The team has faced this kind of tyre puzzle before. A steep race test in Madrid earlier this year threw up similar questions about degradation under pressure, and those lessons will feed into how McLaren prepares for the next round.
For now, the priority is straightforward: understand why the mediums lost so much performance once flat-spotted, and make sure neither driver is caught out at Turn 1 again.
