Norris still has a slight edge over Piastri? This is how Villeneuve sees the McLaren battle play out

Despite Piastri's strong performances, the outspoken Canadian believes Norris still has the upper hand. "I still think Lando Norris has a little bit of an edge to win the Drivers’ World Championship, if he recovers psychologically. The next two or three races will be very telling for Lando to see what happens with him mentally and how he shapes up," he told Vision4Sport.

The gap between the two drivers currently stands at 16 points, in favour of the Australian driver. After a quarter of the season has been completed, Piastri won on four occasions, while Norris won the season-opening round in Bahrain.

"Piastri is now at Lando’s level, and he won’t go backwards. He might progress just that little bit because he’s getting stronger every time. It’s become more of an even battle between the two," Villeneuve continued.

According to the 1997 F1 world champion, Piastri can take advantage of Norris' 'step backwards', and now the question is whether the Briton can regain the same 'underdog mentality' he had in 2024 against Max Verstappen. "Will it make him the underdog again and make him revert to the Lando of last year? Or will it make him collapse? That’s what is hard to read. If it makes him collapse, then okay, Piastri will be champion."

He added: "He’s generally quicker than Piastri, but the points are not there. There are just too many small mistakes, and with the field so close, it means you lose more than one position, you lose maybe five spots. That’s a lot of points."

Villeneuve previous talked about Piastri being the "golden child" of F1. According to the Canadian, therefore he will not penalised as easily as Verstappen would be in certain situations.