Norris takes 2025 F1 title as Verstappen wins Abu Dhabi GP

Lando Norris secured his first Formula 1 title with third place in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, a race dominated by Max Verstappen.

Norris lost second place to team-mate Oscar Piastri on the opening lap and spent his day mainly defending from the threat of Charles Leclerc‘s Ferrari.

The British driver managed to keep his rival at bay by following Ferrari’s two-stop strategy, crossing the finish line in third and becoming the 2025 world champion.

Norris is the first McLaren world champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.

Verstappen took his seventh win of the season in commanding fashion, but fell three points short of the title as not enough rivals separated him from Norris.

Piastri, who also had an outside chance in the championship race, finished second behind Verstappen.

Leclerc’s challenge to Norris eventually evaporated, the Ferrari driver having to second for fourth ahead of George Russell, who finished a very distant fifth in the top Mercedes.

Fernando Alonso was sixth in the Aston Martin ahead of Esteban Ocon, with Lewis Hamilton in eighth. Lance Stroll scored his first points since with the summer break with ninth. Olivier Bearman rounded out the top 10 in the second Haas.

Story of the race

Verstappen, Norris and Piastri made similarly good starts and stayed in the starting order, but the Australian – the only one in the top three to start on hard tyres – soon put his team-mate under pressure and made a bold move around the outside of Turn 9 to take second place before the end of the first lap.

Verstappen opened a two-second gap to Piastri by lap five, as Norris came under increasing pressure from Leclerc, the Briton unable to move outside of DRS range.

“We’ve asked Oscar to pick up the pace a bit,” Norris was told on lap 8 as Leclerc continued to put him under pressure.

The gaps stayed mainly unchanged after 10 laps, with Verstappen around two seconds in front of Piastri, who held a similar advantage over Norris, a second in front of Leclerc.

Russell was the first driver in the top five to pit, on lap 16, in an attempt to undercut Leclerc, but the move didn’t work, as the Ferrari driver pitted and rejoined right ahead.

Norris was next to pit on the following lap, dropping from third to ninth as he switched from medium to hard tyres.

The McLaren driver, however, returned right behind a group of four cars yet to pit. Norris passed Antonelli and Sainz swiftly, and then Lance Stroll and Liam Lawson in a single DRS move on lap 19.

The overtakes moved Norris up to fourth, behind yet-to-stop Tsunoda, who was asked to do “All you can when he catches” on the radio. “Leclerc is only 1.4 seconds behind Norris,” Tsunoda’s engineer added.

Norris, however, didn’t take long to pass Tsunoda down the straight, but to do so, the Briton put all his wheels off the track as Tsunoda veered to the left to defend.

The move was immediately noted by the stewards, who moments later announced an investigation into both drivers: Tsunoda for pushing Norris off the track and the Briton for overtaking off it.

Verstappen, meanwhile, made his stop on lap 24, leaving Piastri in the lead.

On lap 30, stewards announced a five-second penalty for Tsunoda for moving twice while defending from Norris, with no further action required on the McLaren driver’s off-the-track move.

Leclerc made a second stop on lap 40 in an attempt to put pressure on Norris, who had to follow suit to cover from the Ferrari driver, the Briton on hards and the Monegasque six seconds behind on mediums.

Having erased a 16-second deficit to Piastri, Verstappen overtook the McLaren driver with ease on lap 41, the Australian finally pitting for new mediums at the end of that lap.

Piastri rejoined in second, 24 seconds behind the Red Bull.

“He’s going to need to be 1.5 seconds quicker than you every lap,” Verstappen was told on the radio.

Piastri did manage to close in on Verstappen, but his pace was not quick enough to catch him, the Australian even losing ground to Norris behind him.

2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix results