Oscar Piastri is one of a small group of active drivers who have genuinely fought both Hamilton and Verstappen at the front of a race. Asked to rank them, the McLaren driver does not land on one name.

Piastri picked the four-time world champion as the driver he has found hardest to beat, telling ABC News in April that Verstappen sets the standard the rest of the grid works to.

“Max has shown his calibre in the last 10 years. Especially the last five or six, he’s been the benchmark.”

Pressed on the greatest-of-all-time argument, Piastri gave a different name. Speaking to Sky Sports’ Rachel Brookes for her book F1: Racing Drive, the Australian landed on Hamilton, according to Read Motorsport.

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“Purely on stats and also outside of the stats, the impressive thing about Lewis Hamilton is not just the amount of wins and championships he has. But also the way he’s gone about it, he has always been very clean on track; he has also made a very big difference in the world, using F1 as the platform.”

Verstappen as a decade of reference

Piastri’s Verstappen pick is not drawn from a single weekend. He fought the Red Bull driver directly through 2025, when McLaren had equal machinery and the title fight ran deep into the season. The 25-year-old Australian has now lined up against Hamilton in a Ferrari and Verstappen in a Red Bull inside the same calendar year, which gives his “benchmark” line some weight.

He added that Verstappen is on a trajectory to join the all-time list on his own terms.

“I think Max, as well, will ultimately go down as one of the best of all time.”

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Hamilton beyond the record books

Piastri’s Hamilton case runs on more than the raw numbers. He credited the Briton’s on-track conduct and the profile he has built away from racing alongside the seven world titles and the win column.

That reasoning is what sets Hamilton apart in Piastri’s analysis rather than the stopwatch alone. Verstappen is the man he would not want to see on the other side of a late braking zone next Sunday; Hamilton is the career he would put at the top of the sport’s story.

The 2026 context

The split verdict lands in a season that has already crowned Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli as the youngest-ever F1 world champion at 20, with the Italian sealing the title in Mexico City with races to spare. Hamilton sits fourth in his first season at Ferrari; Verstappen is second, having dragged a Red Bull well off Mercedes’ pace to within striking distance of the new champion.

Piastri himself is seventh in the standings on 152 points after 20 of 23 rounds, according to F1 Daily Brief, a steep drop from his 2025 title challenge.

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Three rounds remain on the 2026 calendar after Lando Norris won a wet São Paulo Grand Prix on 8 November.

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