The Formula 1 championship has entered its final, brutal phase. With just five races remaining, what once looked like a coronation for McLaren is rapidly descending into a psychological war, and the paddock is electrified by a terrifyingly familiar predator on the hunt. At the center of this storm are three drivers: championship leader Oscar Piastri, his McLaren teammate Lando Norris just 14 points adrift, and the relentless Max Verstappen, who has clawed his way back from a seemingly impossible deficit.

It is this comeback that has the entire sport holding its breath. After the Dutch Grand Prix, Verstappen sat a catastrophic 104 points behind Piastri. The championship was, by all accounts, over. But in the four races since, the four-time world champion has mounted one of the most extraordinary comebacks in recent memory, securing three wins and a second place. The gap has collapsed to just 40 points. The hunter has the scent, and now, the one man who knows exactly what it’s like to be hunted by Verstappen has spoken.

Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time world champion whose own bitter and intense 2021 title fight with Verstappen is already the stuff of legend, has issued a stark, bone-chilling warning to the two young McLaren drivers. This isn’t just advice; it’s a prophecy from a man who has the scars to prove it.

“You have to be cutthroat,” Hamilton stated, his words carrying the weight of experience. “And that is what Max is. He is going to take this from them if they don’t do the same.”

This is the crux of the battle that will define the next five weekends. It’s not just about speed anymore. McLaren, as Mercedes driver George Russell noted, may have “the fastest car,” making this championship “theirs to lose.” But Verstappen and Red Bull are “smashing it” week in, week out, transforming “inconsistent flashes of speed” into sustained, relentless pressure. Hamilton’s warning dives deeper than chassis performance; it plunges into the dark psychology of a championship fight.

“Being the hunter is much easier than being the defender,” Hamilton explained, laying bare the mental warfare at play. “When you’re in the lead and someone is chopping away at your lead, that plays on you more than if you’re chasing and you have nothing to lose. In the lead, you have everything to lose.”

Verstappen, Hamilton noted, “knows what it’s like.” He has nothing to lose and is attacking with a freedom that Piastri and Norris, in their positions of defense, simply do not have. Every point they lose is a failure. Every point he gains is a victory. This is the crushing pressure that Hamilton is warning them about. He is cautioning that to hold off a driver like Verstappen, they must “dig deep” and find a level of mental fortitude and ruthlessness that they may not yet know they possess.

The problem for McLaren is that this external threat is massively complicated by an internal one. The team isn’t just fighting Max Verstappen; they are fighting themselves.

With both drivers mathematically in the title fight, McLaren is facing the nightmare scenario that every team principal dreads. The internal competition has already boiled over, with on-track incidents between Piastri and Norris in recent races, including a collision in Singapore and another crash at the start of the US Grand Prix sprint. The tension is palpable.

In response, the team has implemented what it’s calling a “clean slate policy.” Norris, who was facing undefined repercussions after the Singapore incident, has had them removed. “We are starting this weekend with a clean slate for both of us,” Piastri confirmed. “Just going out and going racing.”

But is it that simple? Can two drivers, so close to their first-ever World Championship, simply “go racing” when the stakes are this high? Hamilton’s warning to be “cutthroat” hangs heavy in the air. Does that ruthlessness apply only to Max, or does it, inevitably, apply to each other? This internal division is the precise vulnerability that a “hunter” like Verstappen will exploit without a second thought.

The drivers themselves are a study in contrasts. Piastri, the championship leader, appears outwardly cool, maintaining a focus on his own performance. He admitted Verstappen’s “run of form” was “a bit of a surprise,” but remains stoic. “It’s not really something I think about,” Piastri said. “There is no benefit in worrying about or focusing on that. The thing that’s going to help me win the championship is get the most out of myself… he’s there, he’s in the fight, but ultimately doesn’t change how I go about my racing.”

Norris, however, offered a more candid and perhaps more realistic assessment. “He’s Max Verstappen,” Norris stated bluntly. “You’d be silly if you didn’t want to give Max a chance.” He openly acknowledged the new landscape: “At the minute, they are in better form… but we still have chances.”

And what of the hunter himself? Verstappen is the picture of a seasoned champion, brushing off the pressure and focusing on the task. “It’s clear we had a good run, definitely been enjoying it,” he said. “We know we need to be perfect to the end to have a chance, but we just try to maximize everything and see where we end up.” His is the calm of a man who has been here before and knows that perfection, combined with his opponents’ pressure, is the key to victory.

This psychological war is no longer just theoretical. It has already manifested in bizarre, tangible “gamesmanship.” At the US Grand Prix, Red Bull was fined a staggering €50,000 after a team member remained on the grid too long before the race. Their crime? Attempting to remove a piece of tape that McLaren had placed on the pit wall to help Lando Norris perfectly position his car.

Norris found the situation “very amusing, especially because I didn’t even use the tape.” But Piastri characterized it more accurately: “gamesmanship.” Verstappen downplayed it as a “little silly thing,” but the message was clear. Red Bull is willing to engage in mind games, to poke, to prod, and to take a €50,000 fine just to disrupt their rival’s process, however minutely. It’s a physical manifestation of Hamilton’s “cutthroat” warning. Nothing is off-limits.

We are now hurtling toward a finale that will test more than just engineering. It will test nerve, psychology, and the very nature of teamwork. Piastri and Norris are in an impossible position. They are teammates, yet rivals. They are the hunted, yet they must find the ruthless streak of a hunter. They are being warned by a legend that their talent and their car are not enough. They must be willing to do whatever it takes.

The “clean slate” at McLaren is a fragile truce, and with Max Verstappen bearing down on them, fueled by three straight wins and a “nothing to lose” mentality, that truce is about to face its ultimate test. Lewis Hamilton has seen this movie before. He knows how it ends. And he’s warned McLaren that if they don’t change the script, he is going to watch it again.