Max Verstappen took victory, while third was enough for Lando Norris to clinch his first Formula 1 world title, as the 2025 season drew to a close in Abu Dhabi.
Norris did what he needed to do in a largely uneventful but tense finale, finishing directly behind his chief rivals Verstappen and Oscar Piastri to become McLaren’s first world drivers’ champion in 17 years.
Lining up alongside Red Bull’s polesitter Verstappen for the start, Norris initially held second into the first corner, but he was shuffled back to third before the end of lap one by his team-mate Oscar Piastri, who swept around the outside at turn nine.
Having faced further pressure from Charles Leclerc, who kept within DRS range in the early laps, Norris edged clear, while Versappen controlled proceedings at the front ahead of Piastri.
Norris soon started to complain about graining of his tyres, he was forced into an early pitstop on lap 17, to cover off an undercut threat from George Russell. who had pitted two laps earlier.
Having emerged on hard tyres ahead of the Mercedes driver, Norris faced a stressful few laps as he had to negotiate a train of cars that had still to pit. He dived past Russell’s team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli, used his DRS to pick off Carlos Sainz, and then peformed a double overtake on Lance Stroll and Liam Lawson.
But things became a bit more tricky when he came up behind Yuki Tsunoda, who tried to hold him up in an attempt to help Red Bull team-mate Verstappen’s title bid.
Norris drew alongside despite Tsunoda weaving in front of him down the straight, and completed the move despite appearing to be forced off track. That led to a few minutes of uncertainty as officials investigated the incident, with Norris eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, while Tsunoda was handed a five-second penalty for too many changes of direction.
The battle initially allowed Leclerc, who also fought his way through the traffic, to close back in before Norris extended his gap over the Monagasque racer once more.
By this stage, Verstappen had already made his one and only pitstop, with the still-to-stop Piastri now leading. Verstappen used his fresh hard tyres to reel in the Australian, who was set to pit on lap 41 of 58 before he was instructed to stay out by McLaren.
That was because the team brought Norris in for second set of hard tyres, to cover off Leclerc, who had done the same on the previous lap. Norris maintained third on rejoining and several seconds ahead of Leclerc.
By the time Piastri pitted on lap 42, he had already lost first place to Verstappen. On hard tyres that were 18 laps fresher than Verstappen’s, he tried to hunt the race leader down. Norris, meanwhile, faced another threat from a charging Leclerc, but soon picked up the pace to leave him safe in the final podium spot.
Norris closed in on Piastri in the closing stages before being told by the team to slow down, and he cruised home in third to become world champion by two points from Verstappen, who took victory by 12.6s.
Lerclerc finished almost 7s behind Norris in fourth, with Russell a distant fifth. Fernando Alonso was sixth ahead of Esteban Ocon, while Lewis Hamilton climbed from 16th to eighth.
Nico Hulkenberg and Lance Stroll rounded out the top 10, with Tsunoda eventually coming home 14th.
Featured image credit: F1 on X
