Oscar Piastri's Azerbaijan Grand Prix went from brilliant to brutal in seconds. The McLaren driver started inside the top three for just the third time this season and immediately swept past Charles Leclerc's Ferrari to grab second place. He then kept both Red Bull drivers honest until the mid-race safety car, but things unraveled quickly. Max Verstappen got him at the first restart, and then came the devastating moment: a violent lock-up at turn one while defending against Isack Hadjar, sending Piastri off track and down to the back of the field. He limped home in P14.

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The weird thing is Piastri seemed baffled by what happened. In his post-race interview, he said he hadn't even braked particularly hard or late compared to previous laps around Baku. That's where Jacques Villeneuve stepped in with some hard truth. The 1997 world champion watched the onboard footage and called it exactly what it was: a classic rookie mistake. Villeneuve reckoned Piastri got caught up looking in his mirrors to check on Hadjar and completely lost track of where his braking point actually was.

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Karun Chandhok backed up Villeneuve's assessment, describing how Piastri spent the entire aftermath watching the field file past him as he waited to rejoin the circuit. He'd been fixated on monitoring Hadjar through the mirrors, snatched the front wheels off the racing line, and paid the price. It's the kind of mental lapse that can happen to anyone when you're defending hard, but it's brutal when it costs you a potential podium.

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Interestingly, Piastri's teammate Lando Norris had a similar lock-up at turn one earlier in the race against Pierre Gasly. That's got some people wondering if there's something dodgy with the McLaren car. Jamie Chadwick thought it was odd seeing two lock-ups like that from drivers of their calibre, but Villeneuve's explanation definitely held water. Sometimes defending hard just goes wrong, and you've got to live with it.

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