Lando Norris did what he had to do to win the 2025 Formula 1 world championship.
Norris, 26, finished third in Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on a two-stop strategy behind race winner Max Verstappen and his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri. Norris entered the race with the ability to finish third and clinch the title no matter what Verstappen and Piastri did.
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And that’s exactly how McLaren played it. As Piastri was leading the race and needing to make his mandatory pit stop 40 laps into the 58-lap grand prix, the team pitted Norris for a second time and kept Piastri on the track. Norris needed to cover off a two-stop strategy from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and couldn’t afford to lose time to Leclerc on old tires by staying out another lap.
Had Norris dropped to fourth behind Leclerc, Verstappen could have won the championship with his win.
Instead, Piastri pitted a lap later and found himself way behind Verstappen after Verstappen had passed Piastri on track before the Australian pitted. As he emerged back on the track over 24 seconds behind Verstappen, Piastri didn’t have enough time on his medium tires to make up the massive deficit.
It’s the first championship for Norris in his seventh full season in Formula 1. He went the first five years of his career without a win before winning four races and finishing second in the points standings to Verstappen a season ago. This year, McLaren came back with an even faster car relative to the rest of the field and won its second straight constructor’s title as both Norris and Piastri won seven races.
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Verstappen, meanwhile, won eight as he nearly completed an incredible comeback to win his fifth straight championship.
That comeback could have been reality if it wasn’t for a bobble a week ago by Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli. The rookie slid wide as he was trying to hold off Norris for fourth in the waning laps of the Qatar Grand Prix. That allowed Norris — who was at a massive disadvantage thanks to an incredible strategy blunder by McLaren — to sneak past for fourth and ensure that he could win the title with a podium finish.
Had Norris finished behind Antonelli, he would have needed to finish second behind Verstappen in Abu Dhabi to win the championship.
