F1 champion shuts down talk of McLaren bias towards Norris

Speaking on the High Performance podcast, the 54-year-old labelled talks of the Woking-based outfit being biased towards Norris as embarrassing. Villeneuve also condemned the boos the British driver received at several Grands Prix throughout the season.

“That’s a little bit ridiculous. When there was some booing at some races, that was embarrassing. You should never boo a driver who is clean, doesn’t do anything dirty, is respectful on track, and on top of that is super fast. What’s wrong with people? That is embarrassing,” he began.

The 1997 world champion highlighted that there was no evident sign that the McLaren team was being biased towards Norris throughout the campaign.

“Had it been that Piastri was a second a lap faster than him and somehow Lando was winning because a lot of things were happening – his car breaking down every time – then you could start thinking, ‘OK, that’s really not cool, that’s not fair.’ But that wasn’t the case,” Villeneuve added.

The former Williams Racing driver also noted that Norris was the only McLaren driver to suffer an engine failure during the campaign, urging fans to consider the full context before passing judgment on the Woking-based team.

“In the second half, Norris was faster right at the beginning, last year too. So there’s this whole middle part of the season where Piastri was driving a lot better than Norris and was getting the points,” he explained.

“Norris had an engine blow up, not Piastri. Fans often ignore that. You have to look at the whole picture of the entire season. If your favourite is starting to go backwards, you’ve just got to bite the bullet and accept it. Your favourite is simply going backwards. That doesn’t mean the other one is treated better or that the other one is undeserving,” he concluded.

Earlier, former Haas F1 team boss Guenther Steiner singled out Oscar Piastri for his failed title challenge. The 60-year-old emphasised the need for the Australian to reflect on himself after he squandered a healthy lead at the top of the drivers’ championship.

Piastri, who held a 34-point advantage over Norris after round 15 of the campaign, ultimately finished the season 13 points behind his teammate and 11 points behind Max Verstappen, who claimed second place in the drivers’ standings.

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