Oscar Piastri handed 'not recovered' assessment after McLaren struggles

1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve has suggested that Oscar Piastri has "not recovered" from losing the drivers' title last season.

Piastri led the vast majority of the 2025 campaign before suffering a collapse in the closing rounds, handing the title to McLaren team-mate Lando Norris.

Bouncing back from that disappointment has proven difficult for the Australian, particularly with F1 at the start of a new set of power unit regulations.

It has been a challenging period for the 25-year-old, who failed to start the opening two races before securing solid podiums in Japan and Miami.

Since then, Piastri has been unable to get close to the podium positions and, in Barcelona, was comfortably adrift of Norris.

In Villeneuve's view, Piastri is no longer the "talk of the paddock" as he was 12 months ago and needs to rediscover some form.

"We saw the trend last year, halfway through the season," Villeneuve began telling Sky F1. "He was the talk of the paddock. It was like, 'Oh, it's true, it's great they signed him, because we saw that in Formula 2 he was amazing', and then he collapsed. 

"His form went down and he hasn't recovered. It's really odd, and nobody's talking about him anymore. And that's in the space of what, like six months, even less. 

"It's very odd, but, like we often say, you're only as good as your last race. That's what's tough about sport, unless you're Lewis [Hamilton] and you've won so many championships and so on. 

"Then, okay, there's something you can lean on, but otherwise two or three bad races and it's, 'Okay, move on.'"