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F1 champion Lando Norris was booed at multiple races during the 2025 season, including the Mexico City GP and the Brazilian GP. Former F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve recently came out and detailed how he was unimpressed by the crowd booing the McLaren star.
Oscar Piastri led the majority of the F1 season but lost form after his crash at the Azerbaijan GP. On top of that, McLaren made some controversial calls by applying the Papaya rules, including the position swap at the Italian GP following a slow stop for Lando Norris.
With reports and McLaren's Papaya rules seemingly portraying Norris as the favoured driver, fans booed the Briton after the pole position and win at the Mexican and Brazilian GP. Jacques Villeneuve recently featured on the High Performance podcast and discussed the 2025 F1 champion's season.
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The host asked what Villeneuve made of Lando Norris being booed, and the sentiment amongst the fans that McLaren favoured the Briton over Oscar Piastri.
“That's a little bit ridiculous. When there was some booing in some races, it was embarrassing. You should never boo a driver that's clean, doesn't do anything dirty, on track is respectful, and on top of it, it's super fast. What's wrong with people? That was embarrassing,” said Villeneuve
Now, had it been that Piastri was 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, okay, that's really not cool, that's not fair, but that wasn't the case,” he added
Lando Norris just needed to finish on the podium in Abu Dhabi to claim his first title, and he accomplished the same to become McLaren's most recent F1 champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.
Jacques Villeneuve claims McLaren did not favour Lando Norris over Oscar Piastri in the 2025 championship battle
The Papaya rules were enforced to make it a fair fight between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri as the duo challenged for the Drivers' title. Unfortunately, the application of the same seemed to put the Briton as the favoured driver when that wasn't the case. When Jacques Villeneuve was questioned about when Oscar Piastri might be feeling that the team favoured his teammate, he replied,
“He might feel like that. Some people might be talking and he's just saying, you see the team didn't help you, they went wrong against, but that's not the truth. It's a big team. They didn't make one car slower. There was no work done that way. Ultimately, they were wanting to be World Champion with either drivers.”
Lando Norris clawed back Oscar Piastri's 30+ point lead in the final quarter of the season, and despite a fast Max Verstappen charging in the second half of the season, was able to secure the title.
