The 2025 Formula 1 season is proving to be a huge one for McLaren, as both of their drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, are locked in an intense head-to-head championship battle. The Brit was the favourite to win the title following his ultimately unsuccessful challenge against Max Verstappen last season. He won the season opener in Australia, but since then, his young Aussie teammate has taken centre stage.
Pastri reeled off four victories in the next five races to open up an early championship lead, but since then, Norris has battled back. Wins in Monaco and most recently in Austria have reduced the deficit to his teammate to just 15 points, and with several races still to come this season, the championship remains in the balance.
Piastri vs Norris: Who’s the Favourite?
While Lando’s recent triumph at the Red Bull Ring may well have cut the gap to the championship leader, the bookies still make Piastri the man to beat. Online sports betting sites currently have the Aussie listed as a 1.72 betting favourite to claim his maiden world championship, with Norris somewhat lagging behind at odds of 2.83. The use of a parlay odds calculator such as the one at Thunderpick shows the huge disparity between the prices of the two drivers, and is well worth using for any would-be bettors going forward. Having an odds calculator can make it much easier to figure out which bets are the most enticing.
But the ongoing intra-McLaren battle is not without precedent. Throughout F1 history, there have been numerous occasions where teammates, each eager for championship honours, have clashed both on and off the track. Here are two of the most infamous.
Lewis Hamilton vs. Nico Rosberg
In 2014, huge regulation changes suddenly saw Mercedes develop the fastest car on the grid. And by some distance. The Silver Arrows were a full second per lap quicker than their nearest rivals, and that immediately made their drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg the two frontrunners for the world championship. Little did they know that Formula One’s greatest-ever Civil War was about to be ignited.
Hamilton was already a world champion, claiming his maiden crown for McLaren back in 2008. Rosberg, meanwhile, had been a loyal servant to the German team, and he was looking to steal the spotlight from his more illustrious rival. In that 2014 campaign, Mercedes won all but three races, and a streak of six wins in seven at the end of the campaign saw the Brit triumph.
More from the Singapore GP
Catch up with Total Motorsport's latest Singapore GP coverage, including Max Verstappen's victory at Marina Bay, Ferrari's costly strategy gamble, the full race classification, and the updated 2026 Formula 1 Drivers' and Constructors' Championship standings.
In 2015, the rivalry was ramped up a notch as the two teammates clashed both on and off track, with Rosberg famously throwing a cap at his teammate following the United States Grand Prix, ramping up the tensions in the Mercedes garage. Once again, Hamilton would emerge with the title, but three wins on the bounce for Rosberg at the end of the season showed that he wasn’t going down without a fight.
The rivalry spiralled into a third season, and this time around, the German’s time would finally come. He began the campaign with four straight victories, before the two collided in Barcelona to deny Rosberg his fifth win on the bounce. As the campaign progressed, Hamilton would fight back, but he was unable to overturn the deficit, and Rosberg would secure his maiden world title after a thrilling curtain-closing Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Rather than let Hamilton attempt to regain the championship, Rosberg did the unthinkable and retired as world champion at the age of just 31. He who laughs last laughs best.
Sebastian Vettel vs. Mark Webber
Throughout the course of the 2009 season, Red Bull had emerged as a major player, with both Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber picking up race victories. The following year, the Red Bull was suddenly the fastest car on the grid, and the two teammates battled it out for the crown.
Webber secured back-to-back victories in the early part of the season, and he looked on course for a hat trick in Turkey, only for his teammate to come steaming into the back of him and leave both cars out of contention. That added fuel to the fire, but Webber kept plucking away, reeling off further victories in Great Britain and Hungary to assume the championship lead.
Throughout the back end of the season, reliability issues hampered Red Bull’s championship charge. That opened the door for Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, whose wins in Italy, South Korea, and Singapore suddenly saw him storm to the top of the standings. Vettel, meanwhile, had steadily chipped away himself, and victory in the penultimate race of the season saw him take the title fight down to the final day.
Webber and Alonso were the two frontrunners, but disastrous early pit stops for both saw them stuck behind Vitaliy Petrov’s Renault. That provided Vettel with an unlikely opportunity, and he duly won in the Arabian Gulf to claim his maiden title and become the youngest world champion ever at the time.
Vettel’s triumph was something that Webber never recovered from. The German would go on to reel off four straight world championships, while the Aussie never managed to escape his teammate’s sizable shadow.
