As Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris look to not only hold off Max Verstappen, but also each other, to win a first World title, Lewis Hamilton says the pressure they’re both facing is “unimaginable”.

Tipped to be the favourites for the F1 2025 championship titles, McLaren have lived up to pre-season billing with the team not only leading the Constructors’ standings, but 1-2 in the Drivers’.

Oscar Piastri or Lando Norris for the F1 2025 World title?

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

But it isn’t last year’s runner-up sitting in first place, it’s his team-mate.

Although it was Norris who was expected to lead McLaren’s charge against Verstappen and Red Bull, almost a third of the way into the season it is Piastri who is P1, 13 points ahead of Norris.

The Australian is leading in all the important stats with four Grand Prix victories to Norris’ one, and three pole positions to his Briton’s one. Norris does have a Sprint win, which Piastri has yet to achieve this campaign.

F1 2025: McLaren team-mate head-to-head stats

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

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

Both have made mistakes with Piastri off the track at the Australian Grand Prix and slow to react to a swooping Verstappen at Imola.

Norris himself has admitted his final laps in Q3 have let him down, while he too has made mistakes during Grands Prix and Sprints.

But chasing a maiden Drivers’ Championship title, and up against a team-mate in equal machinery, Hamilton says the pressure the McLaren duo are under is intense.

“It’s amazing to see McLaren doing so well, because that’s where I started,” he told the media, including PlanetF1.com.

“And also to see them so close, him and Lando, just these two great drivers.

“The pressure on both of them will be unimaginable, I would say, for most people that are not experiencing it or have not experienced it.

“We’ve seen both, and obviously particularly Piastri, doing a great, great job, weekend in, weekend out, delivering in qualifying and doing everything you need to do to win a World Championship.”

While many Britons have won the Monaco Grand Prix, the most recent being Hamilton in 2010, only three Australians have won the prestigious street race: Jack Brabham, Denny Hulme and Mark Webber.

Piastri is hoping to add his name to the list come Sunday.

“It would be very cool, but I would more want to win it for myself and for the points, in all honesty,” he said. “So, yeah, would be, would be special to do, obviously.”

However, the drivers face a new challenge this weekend with the FIA announcing a mandatory two-stop regulation in a bid to spice up the show after last year’s processional race.

Piastri concedes that while that will shake things up, it’s still better to secure the all-important pole position in Saturday’s qualifying.

“I still think 90 something percent about Monaco is qualifying. I think it’s very complicated now with these two stops, also just using three sets of tyres because if there are red flags like we saw last year, it’s not quite as simple as what it was.

“So it’s definitely going to throw a spanner in the works for everyone.

“But I think if you qualify on pole, unless something goes dramatically wrong, still it’s going to be hard to be beaten.

“So I think you can roll the dice a bit more, but there’s a lot of strategic elements involved. Will it increase overtaking? No, but it will probably lead to a more complicated race.”

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