Jacques Villeneuve says when it comes to the “money time” in qualifying, Lando Norris “collapses” under the pressure of that final Q3 lap.

Having shared the spoils with Oscar Piastri in the practice sessions at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Norris and his team-mate went into qualifying as the drivers to beat.

‘Lando Norris collapses every time there’s a bit of pressure’

But when all was said and done, Piastri was on pole position with a 1:14.670 while Norris dropped to fourth place, almost three-tenths down.

Q3 was a straight fight between the McLaren team-mates and Max Verstappen for pole position with the Red Bull driver on provisional pole position after the first run.

Piastri was the first of the trio to clock his second lap and upped his pace to take P1 off Verstappen. The big question then was, could Norris join him on the front row of the grid?

However, a messy lap from the Briton not only gifted Verstappen a front row spot but it also opened the door for George Russell to push Norris down to fourth place.

While the other side of the McLaren garage celebrated a third pole position for the F1 2025 season, Norris was left to lament another qualifying session gone wrong.

F1 2025 head-to-head stats

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

“Never good enough in my final lap in qualy,” he said. “Everyone goes quicker and I always go slower.

“I’m not going to just blame the car. That’s not me. I felt good all weekend. I felt good in Q1 and Q2. I felt like there’s lap time available. But when I try and go for lap time, it just doesn’t go.

“Clearly, there’s a lot of things changed from last year. In my whole career, qualifying has been my biggest strength by a long way. This year, it’s just not coming my way.”

So much so, 1997 World Champion Villeneuve says it’s like Norris “collapses every time” the pressure is on in qualifying.

Speaking on Sky F1 after qualifying, he said of Piastri: “He’s good, and he seems to perform under pressure.

“Take last year, Lando was the qualifier of the team, and now Lando collapses every time there’s a bit of pressure, and Piastri seems to make a step.

“If you look at his lap, it was aggressive. He was pushing it.

“Even there at the end with the traffic, it was visually disturbing for him, and he did miss the apex one corner to go because of that, he couldn’t see the corner, and he still managed to get pole.”

Quizzed on his statement about Norris collapsing, Villeneuve added: “He’s shown all through the season that he has the pace and most of the times slightly, he has the edge over his team-mates, over Piastri, but when it’s money time, he collapses.

“He says he puts himself under too much pressure and it doesn’t work out. He loses his natural flow. And when you lose the natural flow in driving, you lose a 10th here, half a 10th there. You put yourself under pressure and you start making mistakes.”

Asked if Norris could find the flow and recover in the Grand Prix, Villeneuve backed the McLaren driver as he feels Norris is “calmer” during Grands Prix than he is in qualifying.

“The race is different because no driver drives to the edge,” said the Canadian. “They have to manage the tyres, they drive within a temperature bench.

“It’s a very different way of driving and he calms down, so he seems to be he doesn’t seem to suffer that pressure in the race.

“It’s really that qualifying lap where he had the advantage last year, and now he’s been unbeaten a few times, and it’s starting to affect him.”

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