'Piastri messed up': F1 champion lashes 'weak' McLaren as Verstappen wins in Italy

Max Verstappen isn't about to let Oscar Piastri and McLaren walk away with his Formula 1 title.

The defending champion ended Piastri's three-race win streak and gave his title defence a big boost with victory at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix after a daring overtake on Piastri at the start.

Piastri and his teammate Lando Norris — whose McLaren car has been the one to beat so far this season — had no real answer to the pace of Verstappen's Red Bull after that.

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The 1997 F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve was critical of Piastri and then of McLaren, saying the team should have ordered the Aussie to let Norris past late in the race so he could potentially run down Verstappen after a Virtual Safety Car.

"It was a copy of Jeddah except he (Piastri) didn't close the door, he left enough space because he was caught sleeping," Villeneuve told Sky Sports.

"They (McLaren) show weakness basically. They don't show the strength Red Bull are showing year after year. It's as if they're afraid to be aggressive to try and win the drivers' championship and they're afraid to go against Piastri, it's really odd.

"Piastri messed up that first corner. He got caught out sleeping. He should never have come out of that corner second.

"On the restart, McLaren knew it was a matter of laps before Norris would overtake Piastri with the tyre difference. So why make him lose three laps instead of giving him a shot at Verstappen?

"Verstappen is in the championship (battle), you don't want to give him wins. That's more points for him.

"They (McLaren) seem to be happy with second and third. McLaren has a car where a good weekend is first and second. Anything less is barely acceptable, but they seem to be happy with second and third."

Piastri post-race admitted he erred early in letting Verstappen past.

"I just braked too early," Piastri said.

"It was a good move by Max. Disappointing obviously but I think we made a few wrong calls after that anyway. Not our best Sunday."

Verstappen built a commanding lead which was wiped out when the safety car bundled the field back up and injected more drama into the race late on. He still held on to win ahead of Norris, who overtook Piastri for second with five laps remaining.

Verstappen took his second win of the season, the first win since last month’s Japanese Grand Prix, and his fourth in a row at Imola.

Verstappen praised Red Bull's “fantastic execution all round” as the team marked its 400th F1 race with a win.

“The start itself wasn’t particularly great, but I was still on the outside line, or basically the normal (racing) line, and I was like, ‘Well, I’m just going to try and send it round the outside,’ and it worked really well," Verstappen said of his crucial overtake. "That, of course, unleashed our pace because once we were in the lead, the car was good.”

It was also a clean overtake after Verstappen's aggressive style brought controversy at the last two races in Saudi Arabia and Miami.

Norris' late-race move on Piastri was almost a copy of Verstappen's, though Norris had the advantage of being on fresher tires than his teammate.

“We had a good little battle at the end between Oscar and myself, which is always tense, but always good fun,” Norris said, admitting that Verstappen and Red Bull were “too good for us today.”

Piastri's lead over Norris in the standings was cut to 13 points, with Verstappen nine behind Norris.