Former F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve has been left stunned after Oscar Piastri appeared relatively unbothered by his qualifying howler at the Mexican Grand Prix.
Piastri managed only the eighth fastest time and was some 0.588 seconds slower than Lando Norris in qualifying on Sunday (AEDT).
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The 24-year-old will start seventh following Carlos Sainz’s grid penalty from the US Grand Prix, but it is still an almighty task as his grip on the drivers’ championship continues to slip.
Alarmingly, it is the fifth consecutive race where he has been outqualified by his McLaren teammate and was his second-worst qualifying session of the year.
Just weeks ago, the F1 drivers’ championship looked Piastri’s to lose, but after several poor weeks, he finds himself just 14 points ahead of Norris, who can leapfrog him on Monday (AEDT) if he wins the race and Piastri finishes fifth or worse.
But the Aussie said he felt he had done some decent laps and was at a loss as to why his times were so far off those of his teammate and closest championship rival.
“I feel like I’ve done some decent laps through the weekend, but everything seems to be about four or five-tenths off. So that’s obviously not a great sign,” Piastri said.
“Ultimately, just a bit frustrated with how the session has gone.
“There’s a lot of things I could worry about, but ultimately, being that far off when you feel like you’ve done a reasonable job is a difficult place to be, and so that’s my biggest concern.”
Those comments rang alarm bells for former world champion Villeneuve, who noted it was “really strange” to hear that the Aussie had a “reasonable” feeling in the car, despite being almost six-tenths slower than Norris.
“What was odd, his comments about, I don’t know why there’s no pace, and when you say that you’re quite happy with the car, everything is feeling good, and somehow it’s not working on the clock.
“When you’re slower than your teammate by that amount, normally, you will try to push a little bit harder. You’ll get in trouble. You’ll lock wheels, so you’ll start to figure out, okay, there are issues here and there. I can improve there.
“But he seemed to be happy with how the car was feeling, and that’s what’s really strange.”
Even McLaren boss Andrea Stella is at a loss to (explain) why Piastri has suddenly struggled for pace.
“It’s definitely unusual,” McLaren boss Andrea Stella said after qualifying.
“Our two drivers have always been separated by a few milliseconds in qualifying, by a few centimetres in the race, so it’s unusual to see this distance on the grid and this distance in terms of lap time.”
