Nigel Mansell makes his pick for the 2025 World Drivers’ Championship

The F1 break started with a bang when Red Bull announced Christian Horner’s departure. Red Bull’s new principal, Laurent Mekies will have to steer the ship through rough waters for the remainder of the season as the future of star driver Max Verstappen remains up in the air too.

F1 can be unpredictable but something that looks certain this season is a double whammy for McLaren who are cruising to the Constructors’ Championship and the World Drivers’ Championship.

The question that remains for the Zak Brown led team is who will be the one to win the Drivers’ title? The current leader of the pack Oscar Piastri, or last year’s runner-up for the title, Lando Norris?

We sat down with former McLaren driver and 1992 F1 World Champion, Nigel Mansell, to get his thoughts on the team’s performance and his pick to win the Drivers’ Championship.

I’d give the edge to Lando as he has the momentum

In Mansell’s view, the momentum is with Lando Norris and he feels the British driver will be the one holding the World Drivers’ Championship at the end of the season. Mansell observes that both drivers have driven incredibly, despite making a couple of mistakes at different points in the season so far.

"I think they're going to have a great head-to-head battle all year but I think Lando will probably come out on top."

"Every time you win a race, you get more confidence and then you have to be very honest with yourself. Although you won the race, where could you have done better? And if you're able to be honest with yourself even if you won the race, that you can improve, the next race you'll improve again."

"Now they're so close in qualifying. The team's doing such a great job with supplying both drivers with exactly the same equipment and they are ahead of all the other teams. They don't have to worry about anybody, that's wonderful."

Mansell disagrees with the bookies and believes momentum is the main reason Lando will edge it but adds that Piastri will push him all the way. Piastri is currently 4/6 to win the Championship but the former McLaren driver doesn’t discount the possibility of DNFs turning the tide in either direction.

A DNF or another 10-second penalty like we saw at Silverstone will shake those odds up which will provide great opportunities to use the bet365 bonus code. That said, Mansell felt that the Australian got the short end of the stick with an unlucky 10-second penalty at Silverstone.

"I think Oscar will push Lando all the way and hey look, if something goes wrong, there's a DNF with either of them, then someone's gonna jump ahead on the points and then it's a question whether the other car DNFs and it's going to be competitive for the rest of the year."

"Head-to-head, it's very, very close, but at the moment, the momentum is with Lando. You come off two wins. Monaco's a great win, Silverstone's a brilliant win."

"Sadly Oscar screwed up, only a little bit and I sympathize with him but the regulations are the regulations. I have to say Max overdid it a little bit. I think it didn't help to bring the situation to the attention of the stewards but he was very unlucky to get a 10-second penalty."

McLaren have done a mighty job this season

Mansell went on to praise the entire team for the work they’ve put in making the MCL36 such a dominant machine on the racetrack and how it has resulted in a situation that the one making the least mistakes will win the Drivers’ title.

"First of all, McLaren have done a formidable job. It's incredible. It's a beautiful team to watch in motion. Both the team principal Andrea Stella and CEO Zak, they've done an incredible job."

“The person that wins the championship is the person that makes the least mistakes, and the beautiful thing with McLaren is that all the team members have done a superb job.”

Mansell also revealed that he talked to other teams during the Silverstone race weekend and they explained that they know what makes McLaren so good but are finding it hard to catch up with them.

“They have just carried on with the car and team, having this amazing edge on everybody. I spoke to a number of teams at the weekend, if they knew why McLaren is so good, and some of them know why they are so good, but they can´t catch up.”

“It takes six months to catch up, so they´ve got this edge for the rest of the year and nobody’s going to catch up to them this year.”

"There's some very clever aerodynamics in certain areas and they've done a mighty job."

Team harmony not a problem for McLaren

When two drivers from the same team are fighting for the world title, sparks tend to fly. We’ve seen it with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, and of course, Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet.

With only eight points separating Piastri and Norris at the moment, one wouldn’t be blamed for expecting another intrateam rivalry but Mansell, who draws from considerable experience here, thinks otherwise. In his view, Zak Brown brings a cool temperament that is helpful in preventing an unnecessary team rivalry.

“I don´t think the team harmony is a problem at all, because Zak is one of the coolest chiefs there is, and he is on top of it.”

“If you are on top of something and you have already adapted to what is about to come around the corner, there are no surprises.”

Mansel continues, giving the example of the Austrian GP where Piastri was warned by the team to not run into Norris. In his view, the competition between them is respectful and healthy and that will help prevent things from boiling over.

“Both drivers know and you saw it in Austria as well when Oscar was warned not to run into Lando. They don't want that manoeuvre seen again.”

“They are driving very well together and as much as there is this massive competitiveness between them, there is a healthy respect as well, and they both know that they can both win the championship. They want to do it honourably as well.”

"The worst thing you can do is win a championship in a dishonourable fashion.”

Read Mansell's thoughts on Christian Horner's mid-season departure from Red Bull