Abu Dhabi: the finale
Lando Norris is the world champion!
The 2025 season comes to an end, with the title contenders leaving their all on the track this evening. Welcome to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix debrief!
👑 2025 F1 World Champion:
Lando Norris wins his first ever Formula 1 World Championship, becoming McLaren’s 8th F1 WDC and first since 2008, following Lewis Hamilton! It was a close battle, with only a two-point difference between Norris and Verstappen! Major congratulations to all three of the contenders on how they’ve handled the WDC fight this season, with maturity, class & support for one another. I can’t wait to see how it’ll all play out next season!
A tense start for our WDC winner, as he lost positions to his teammate, Oscar Piastri. This demoted him to P3 by turn 9, with Charles Leclerc being a high threat right up behind him! Norris’s defence skills were in tip-top shape today, battling the fierce Monegasque driver from getting anywhere close to P3.
Let’s not forget about his overtakes, as following his pit stop on lap 17, Norris was quick to complete a double overtake with DRS, passing Fernando Alonso and Kimi Antonelli!
If that’s not the WDC spirit, then I don’t know what is! (Anyone caught on to my ‘spirit’ joke following Qatar?) The only trouble he came across during the race was with Yuki Tsunoda.
🛞 Teamwork makes the dreamwork:
During a title-deciding race, help from your teammate is the best thing a driver could ask for. With this being Yuki Tsunoda’s last race in F1, remaining in the Red Bull family as the test and reserve driver, he was sure to pull out all the tricks he had in order to help Verstappen.
On lap 24, Yuki was defending against Lando, almost like weaving down the straight between turns 5 and 6. As Lando approached with DRS to overtake, Yuki squeezed Lando as much as he could, causing him to run wide, with all 4 wheels beyond the white line during the overtake. As expected, this incident was noted by race control, with the stewards taking a look at both fronts of the incident - forcing another driver off the track & leaving the track and gaining an advantage.
The final verdict was… Yuki Tsunoda received a 5-second time penalty for more than one change of direction, essentially moving under braking! Norris luckily escaped the penalty! Despite Norris being all 4 wheels off the track, the stewards’ decision on the penalty was due to,
“The driver of Car 4 overtook Car 22 off track, however this occurred because the driver of Car 22 made multiple moves defending his position against Car 4. Had Car 22 not made those moves, Car 4 would have overtaken it without going off track but moved off track to avoid contact with Car 22. Further, the driving standards guidelines provide that if a car is ‘forced off’ (which was effectively what occurred here) it is not considered to have exceeded track limits. Whilst technically the overtake took place off track, we determine in view of the above, to take no further action.”
An understandable outcome of penalties. By the end of the race, Norris was 8 seconds clear of Charles Leclerc, who was in P5. If Lando had received the 5-second time penalty, it wouldn’t have changed his chances at winning the WDC too drastically.
👋 Bye, bye, bye:
Goodbye we say to numerous things leaving Formula 1 ahead of the 2026 season.
Sauber will leave, with Audi taking their spot.
Yuki Tsunoda won’t be driving in Formula 1; however, he’ll still be around as a test and development driver for Red Bull.
Red Bull + Honda era comes to a close, arguably one of Honda’s greatest eras in motorsport! Ford will be joining Red Bull in helping develop their engines.
Renault leaves as an engine manufacturer, meaning Alpine will switch to Mercedes power engines for 2026.
The F1 calendar drops Imola, as we welcome Madrid’s new street circuit.
Last but not least… It’s the end of DRS.
We leave DRS behind, heading into 2026 with ‘manual override mode’, MOM for short. This will give the drivers a small boost in hybrid power when they are within one second of the car ahead. I’m not going to go too much into detail regarding all the new 2026 regulations, rules and additions, as I’ll be doing a whole other post for it, so subscribe to ensure you don’t miss it!
We began the 15-season era with Jenson Button pushing the DRS button for the first time, as Kimi Antonelli got the chance to be the last driver to push it. It’d be quite funny and memorable if we had Jenson pressing it for the last time, as he even stated it’d be a ‘full circle moment!’
❌ Caution:
Oliver Bearman is two penalty points away from a race ban after his incident with Lance Stroll. On the last lap, Stroll went for an overtake on Bearman, who wasn’t ready to give up the point-scoring position! He was seen weaving from side to side, similarly to what Tsunoda did, and as expected, this was noted by race control, with Oliver Bearman being handed a 5-second time penalty for more than one change of direction and one penalty point on his licence.
Now, earlier in the race, Stroll was seen doing the exact same to defend his position from Carlos Sainz! Lance Stroll too received a 5-second time penalty for more than one change of direction and one penalty point on his licence.
It seemed like the stewards had a busy race, as I kept seeing drivers being constantly noted for something!
🇦🇪 Mini mentions:
This is a shorter post than usual; however, I’ll be uploading loads during winter break, so keep your eye out for that! Now, I can’t end my season finale post without the mini mentions!
Alex Albon was handed a 5-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
Pierre Gasly was handed a 5-second time penalty for track limits.
Kimi Antonelli, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg had been waved a black and white flag.
And just like that, it’s the end of the 2025 Formula 1 season! Thank you for reading & supporting me during my first season as a writer! Don’t worry, next season my writing and work will be in pristine condition! I hope you enjoyed reading this & any previous posts. Click the like button to support, and let me know if you have any suggestions or improvements for me! See you next time!
🏁 Other posts: 🏁
There was so much going on in Mclaren but at last Norris world champion!! And Piastri seen upset at first I think
The goodbyes are hard this year 💔