Jacques Villeneuve scolds ‘embarrassing’ booing of Lando Norris

1997 F1 world champion has condemned the “embarrassing” booing of Lando Norris towards the end of the 2025 season.

McLaren’s Norris was booed by a portion of fans following his back-to-back victories in Mexico City and Brazil.

It was unclear as to why Norris was jeered, but several theories claimed fans believed McLaren were favouring Norris over title rival and teammate Oscar Piastri.

Norris went on to clinch his maiden F1 world championship by finishing third at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, while Piastri ended up P3 in the standings, 13 points behind his teammate.

“That's a little bit ridiculous. When there was some booing in some races that was embarrassing,” Villeneuve told the High Performance Podcast when asked about the booing Norris suffered.

“You should never boo a driver that's clean, doesn't do anything dirty, on track is respectful, and on top of it is super fast, what's wrong with people? That was embarrassing.

"Now, had it been that Piastri was a 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. And in the second half, Norris has been faster right at the beginning as well, last year as well. So there's this whole middle of the season where Piastri was driving a lot better than Norris and was getting the points, Norris had an engine blowing up, not Piastri, and so those fans, they don't look at that either.

“You have to look at the whole picture, at the whole season and suddenly if your favourite is starting to go backwards, you just got to bite the bullet and accept it.

"That doesn't mean that the other one is treated better, or the other one is undeserving just because the one you're a fan of is not winning right now. That’s really wrong.”

F1 drivers ‘have to grow a thick skin’

Norris laughed off the incidents and Villeneuve says F1 drivers have to grow a “thick skin” in order to deal with such negativity.

“That’s the price we have to pay now with social media and how big F1 has become. It’s very passionate, the people are passionate,” Villeneuve added.

“Fans come from fanaticism. You stop thinking when you get in that mindset. It happens to all of us. You want something so much that you get attached and it’s hard to see reality, so you’ll start to mould a reality to your thought process.

“If your champion is not winning then it cannot be his fault. It has to be something from the outside. It has to be the team destroying his chance and so on and so on. But there’s nothing concrete those comments.

“It’s pure fandom and it'll always be like this. Ultimately, it's not a bad thing. You know drivers at that level have to grow thick skin. If not you don't deserve to be there.

"You just have to have a thick skin because they're all very happy to get the compliments. They love it when it's just positive, but it gets balanced out with negatives. And you need to be able to take and accept the negatives as well, it goes both ways.”