Villeneuve: 'Piastri's contract prevents McLaren from favouring Norris'

The 1997 world champions claims that the Woking-based team cannot prioritise Norris over the Australian, because of the clauses present in his contract.

"They cannot give Lando priority over Oscar because of the contract. He has a contract that protects him. As long as both drivers can win the Championship, there won’t be team orders unless there’s something significantly big for the Constructors’ title or if one of them is having an issue in a race like last year,” the Canadian began to a betting site.

"All that matters for McLaren is that they have a car right now that is easy to drive for both drivers, which means they can control the championship," he continued.

However, the former world champion also sees a clear difference between the two teammates. "Lando always has issues with the front end. He always uses up his front tyres a little bit too much, and China is an understeer track that eats up the front tyres. He was always going to have a little bit more trouble on that track."

Therefore, he found the Chinese Grand Prix to be a crucial one in terms of the drivers' standings. "Because second or first is a big difference in points, it was important for Lando to go get as many points as possible and keep pushing, because he knows that Piastri, in the long run, will be a threat to his championship chances," Villeneuve underlined, who believes the 'most difficult' battle for the title is always against one's teammate.

In China, Villeneuve found that Piastri – who outperformed his teammate in all Formula 1 sessions - was stronger. , he continues.

Villeneuve saw that while Norris was faster than the Grand Prix winner in China, but Piastri did better overall.

"Piastri was more of a cool cat. He maximised his weekend. He had a good qualifying, a good start and then, as we saw, he did a good job in the lead. Lando was quick but he was behind and he overheated his brakes. Sometimes you don’t need to be the quickest – you just need to have a better weekend, not make mistakes, and perform better under pressure," he explained.

The last time two McLaren drivers battled for the title was in the 2007 season, when a rookie Lewis Hamilton fought against the at the time defending world champion, Fernando Alonso. Villeneuve however does not see a repeat of that happening.

He concluded: "That’s where the issues stemmed from – not because they were fighting each other for the championship. That was political and created by the team boss, by the team owner. When that happens as a driver, especially when you’re a double World Champion, you’ve been given the big contract to leave your other team with whom you were winning, and suddenly you’re not the one they’re working with. They were openly saying that their future is Lewis Hamilton, so of course he was going to react. That’s where the issue came from."