Lewis Hamilton has honest advice for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to beat Max Verstappen

Lewis Hamilton has insisted that Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris will have to be “cutthroat” if they are to beat Max Verstappen to the drivers' crown in 2025. The Dutchman has moved into the lead of the papaya duo in the drivers' table, with him sitting just 40 points off the championship lead after winning three of the last four races.

At the start of the season, the championship battle for the drivers' crown was set to remain between plates and Norris, as McLaren had a substantial pace advantage over its rivals. But as the paddock has returned from the summer break, that advantage has often been whittled away by multiple points in recent weeks.

This has seen Verstappen, who was once 104 points off the championship lead after the Dutch GP, cut his deficit by 64 points over the next four race weekends to once again be a championship contender.

Afterwards, the paddock turned to conversation about how a driver should fare when battling for the elusive title against the Dutchman, and who better to watch than Lewis Hamilton. He battled Verstappen for the 2021 drivers' title, a challenge that went down to the final round of the season, where the 28-year-old had emerged victorious.

So when asked how the papaya duo should fare to battle Verstappen, Hamilton said F1TV:

“You've got to be gritty. That's what Max is. It's going to take that away from them if they don't do the same thing. They've got to be pushing and they've got to dig deep to be able to, first of all, hold someone like Max and the car he's in right now. But also, for any of them to get ahead and you, consistency is Max's last race.

Of the last four race weekends, none of the McLaren drivers have been able to finish ahead of Max Verstappen in any race format.

---

Max Verstappen is not stressing about potentially winning his fifth drivers' title

Max VerstappenThe team's deficit now stands at 40 points ahead of the Mexican GP. A gap that initially looked insurmountable when the paddock returned from the summer break now feels within reach if the four-time champion's momentum continues.

That would give him the fifth Drivers' Championship the Red Bull driver was looking for, but Verstappen is not pushing to claim the title, as he said ahead of the Mexican GP weekend (via Official F1 website):

“I don't know. It's still a big leadership gap. We're not too stressed about it. We're just trying to enjoy it, trying to get the most out of it until the end. If it works, awesome. If it doesn't, we can still be very proud of the performance increase we showed.”

Should Max Verstappen win his fifth drivers' title this year, he would be the first person since Michael Schumacher to claim five drivers' world championships in a row.