Lewis Hamilton has backed Oscar Piastri to win his first Formula One title after his impressive start to the season ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday.
Piastri has enjoyed a stunning start to the season, winning four out of the first seven races of the season to go 13 points clear of Lando Norris.
He won three races in a row in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Miami before missing out to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen at Imola last week.
Hamilton has tipped him to win his first career title despite starting out in the sport three years ago.
He said: “It’s amazing to see McLaren doing so well, because that’s where I started. 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.
“He [Piastri] has been doing everything you need to do to win a world championship. I don’t have any advice for him. Just to keep doing what he’s doing.”
Hamilton produced a stunning comeback from 12th to fourth on the grid at Imola last week he is hoping to build on the performance in Monaco on Sunday.
He said: “There’s lots of positives from last weekend but there’s still areas that we need to improve on.
“Clearly qualifying has been our biggest problem so far this year. We’re not extracting the performance from the tyres, and that’s something we are working on. I have some ideas, the team has some ideas, and we’ll try those this weekend.”
Similarly, Charles Leclerc finished top of the grid at the Monaco Grand Prix practice on Friday.
Leclerc set a best lap of 1:11.355 in the second session to narrowly finish ahead of Oscar Piastri and Lewis Hamilton at the head of the timesheet.
Lando Norris finished fourth in the second McLaren, Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar who both finished in the top six.
Hamilton is racing in the Monaco Grand Prix for the 18th time, he won the race with McLaren in 2008, before adding two more victories with Mercedes in 2016, and 2019.
