Lando Norris capped an extraordinary Formula 1 season, securing the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship, edging out Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri after an intense battle at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The 26-year-old McLaren driver delivered a strong, nerve-tight performance at Yas Marina, closely securing the points he needed with a third-place finish and becoming the first British driver to win the title since Lewis Hamilton.
The title fight, entering the finale, was tightly wound. Norris arrived in Abu Dhabi with a fragile 12-point buffer over the previous four-time champion Max Verstappen and a 16-point gap to his Australian teammate Oscar Piastri. From all three contenders starting from the front of the lineup, the permutations were endless. Verstappen began from pole after a brilliant qualifying session, with Norris alongside him at P2 and Piastri slotting in at P3, positioning all three nose-to-tail for the opening charge into Turn 1.
Verstappen gave his best shot, winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but he needed Norris to finish either at P4 or below to retain his championship. Piastri, who was also still in contention for his own maiden championship, needed both a P1 finish and his teammate to fall back outside the top 5. With Norris standing strong under the weight of the moment, neither scenario unfolded.
Piastri made the first major move of the day, sweeping past Norris on the opening lap. That dropped the Briton into third, a place that would ultimately decide the championship. What followed was a relentless test with pressure from Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, traffic cycles after pit stops, and a feisty wheel-to-wheel exchange with Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda. Every moment is balanced, on the brink of unravelling the title bid. But Norris kept the car clean and mistakes to a minimum.
As Verstappen and Piastri led the race from up ahead, Norris focused on maintaining the gap behind. The threat from Ferrari and George Russell’s Mercedes still loomed, and yet, the McLaren driver held the line, resisting every challenge to preserve the result he needed. Crossing the finish line, he swept up the championship with just two points over Verstappen, with Piastri close behind, 13 points short, after a brilliant run.
Inside the McLaren Garage, the team erupted as Norris crossed the line, and CEO Zak Brown’s now iconic celebratory radio call crackled through Norris’s headset: “Is this the world champion hotline? You did it!”
Pulling into parc fermé, the Briton remained in the cockpit for several quiet moments as the scale of his achievement washed over him. He was soon engulfed by his engineers and mechanics, who had guided him through the most intense season of his career yet, after walking straight into the arms of his parents, who were waiting at the sidelines.
The final race results reflect how slim the margins were. Verstappen won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 1:26:07.469, with Piastri finishing 12.594 seconds behind. Norris followed, 16.572 seconds off the lead. Leclerc pushed hard but ended up seven seconds short of pressuring Norris, finishing fourth ahead of Mercedes driver George Russell. Behind them, Fernando Alonso, Esteban Ocon, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Hulkenberg, and Lance Stroll rounded out the top ten.
Stroll and Olli Bearman were both hit with penalties for late-race incidents, while Tsunoda earned a five-second penalty for his defensive move against Norris earlier in the race—a moment that could have dramatically altered the title outcome had it gone differently.
The remainder of the field saw typical 2025 season patterns: Gabriel Bortoleto, Carlos Sainz, Kimi Antonelli, Alex Albon, Isack Hadjar, Liam Lawson, and the Alpine pair of Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto filled the lower positions, some carrying penalties of their own.
Norris’s consistency across this season and his ability to deliver under pressure led the Briton to his maiden world championship a few years after Hamilton last established McLaren’s dominance in the sport. The moment he had long dreamed of has now been etched permanently into Formula 1 history.
