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Lando Norris Finally Gets His Crown — By Driving Like a Man Who’d Misplaced It All Year

There are easier ways to win a Formula One world title. You could dominate from March, lead every championship table by enough points to make your team principal weep with joy, and breeze into Abu Dhabi with the sort of comfort usually reserved for people who bought the extended warranty.

Or you could do what Lando Norris did: grind through a long, occasionally maddening season, arrive at the finale with the championship still very much in play, and then spend 58 laps swatting away threats like a man eating at an outdoor café during mosquito season. At the end of it all, he crossed the line in third and became the 2025 FIA Formula One World Drivers’ Champion by the grand margin of two points over Max Verstappen. Two. That’s the kind of wiggle room you get when parallel parking a pickup truck after three mimosas.

But numbers alone don’t tell the story. The way he earned them — that’s where the drama lives.

When the lights went out, Verstappen snapped off the line with the precision of a man late to his dentist appointment and immediately shut the door on any attempt Norris might have made at taking the lead. Norris tucked in behind him, likely telling himself to keep calm, breathe, and preferably not toss away a title on the first 500 feet of asphalt.

Then Oscar Piastri arrived like someone cutting in line at TSA. He pounced, swept past Norris, and dropped his teammate to the one position where every heartbeat suddenly matters. Third was still enough for the championship, but only if Norris could stay there — and behind him, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc began advancing with the enthusiasm of a man chasing the last parking spot at Costco on a Saturday.

Leclerc latched onto the McLaren’s gearbox, forcing Norris to lean harder on his tires than he wanted, the dirty air hurting the balance just enough to make everyone watching squirm a little. Eventually Leclerc’s tires gave up the fight, letting Norris slip a few seconds clear. But the respite didn’t last long.

When Norris pitted for Hards on the same lap as Leclerc, both rejoined smack in the middle of heavy traffic. And not the easy kind — this was the sort of snarled mid-pack circus where you half-expect someone to be honking. Norris, to his credit, sliced through it with a certain irritated elegance, brushing past Kimi Antonelli and Alex Albon before pulling a wonderfully cheeky move at Turn 6, passing both Lance Stroll and Albon in one go as if he were clearing clutter off a desk.

Ahead waited another hurdle: Yuki Tsunoda’s Red Bull. Tsunoda, evidently in a mood, was told to back Norris up. What followed was less “defense” and more “live-action swerve test.” Norris made his move, Tsunoda weaved, and the McLaren was shoved off the racing line — but still through. The stewards reviewed the whole thing and dinged Tsunoda five seconds for making more direction changes than a lost tourist.

Norris later waved it off like a man brushing lint off his jacket. “I didn’t care, I knew what I did was fine,” he said. That’s the confidence of someone who’s spent most of his life chasing one dream and wasn’t about to let a Red Bull with attitude derail it.

All the while, Verstappen was busy doing Verstappen things — pole to domination, the kind of lights-to-flag performance that would normally headline the evening news. He’d clawed his way back from being 104 points down after the Dutch Grand Prix and arrived in Abu Dhabi needing just a little luck to seal a remarkable comeback. He didn’t get it. But he won the race by twelve seconds and made a convincing argument that he deserved far more than he received.

“I feel good,” Verstappen said afterward, sounding surprisingly zen for a man who missed the title by two points. “We put it on pole, we won the race in dominant fashion… We didn’t win the championship. Okay, that happens, that’s life.” As statements go, it was the verbal equivalent of a shrug — a champion’s shrug, the sort given by someone who’s already climbed the mountain and knows how to find the next one.

But the day belonged to Norris. When he crossed the line, the weight of a career finally fell onto his shoulders — and then lifted all at once. “Oh God! I’ve not cried in a while,” he said, instantly contradicting himself as the tears started. “I didn’t think I’d cry but I did. I’m not crying!” He thanked McLaren, his family, the crew, the people who’ve been with him “seven, eight years,” and admitted he’d dreamed of this moment for as long as he can remember. “It feels amazing,” he said. “Pretty surreal.”

And while he tried to remain composed, he couldn’t resist the grin that kept threatening to take over his face. “Now I know what Max feels like a little bit,” he joked. The man had just become Formula One’s 35th world champion — he’d earned the right to enjoy himself.

Around him, the field sorted itself out with relatively little mystery. Leclerc crossed the line in fourth, a solid drive but nowhere near close enough to rattle the McLaren. George Russell followed in fifth, the best Mercedes could muster on a day, and after a season, they’d probably like to forget. Fernando Alonso dragged his Aston Martin to sixth, a result that nudged the team ahead of Haas in the Constructors’. Behind him, Esteban Ocon took seventh for Haas, with Lewis Hamilton charging from 16th on the grid to claim eighth — a small victory for a season that gave him precious few.

Nico Hülkenberg marked his 250th and final race before Sauber becomes Audi next season with a ninth-place finish, while Lance Stroll completed the points in tenth despite a penalty for erratic driving. Just beyond the top ten, Ollie Bearman was hit with his own late penalty, Carlos Sainz endured a quiet afternoon in13th, and Tsunoda’s earlier antics dropped him to 14th. The usual cast of midfield characters — Antonelli, Albon, Hadjar, Lawson — traded minor offenses and small frustrations. And, as has become a grim tradition in 2025, Alpine rounded out the results, Pierre Gasly finishing just ahead of Franco Colapinto as if completing a sad ritual.

None of it mattered nearly as much as the sight of McLaren’s newest champion sitting in Parc Fermé, helmet off, trying to make sense of a moment he’s chased since childhood. “Not many people in F1 get to experience what I’ve experienced this season,” he said. “I’m just crazy happy.”

After nine years with McLaren — the lean years, the rebuild years, the nearly-there years — Lando Norris finally delivered the title they’d all been waiting for. A championship that was earned the hard way, fought for every lap, and decided not by dominance but by nerve.

And in the end, it was the man in third place who stood tallest.

FORMULA 1 ETIHAD AIRWAYS ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX 2025 – RACE RESULTS

Pos. No. Driver Team Laps Time / Retired Pts.
1 1 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 58 1:26:07.469 25
2 81 Oscar Piastri McLaren 58 +12.594s 18
3 4 Lando Norris McLaren 58 +16.572s 15
4 16 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 58 +23.279s 12
5 63 George Russell Mercedes 58 +48.563s 10
6 14 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 58 +67.562s 8
7 31 Esteban Ocon Haas F1 Team 58 +69.876s 6
8 44 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 58 +72.670s 4
9 27 Nico Hulkenberg Kick Sauber 58 +79.014s 2
10 18 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 58 +79.523s 1
11 5 Gabriel Bortoleto Kick Sauber 58 +81.043s 0
12 87 Oliver Bearman Haas F1 Team 58 +81.166s 0
13 55 Carlos Sainz Williams 58 +82.158s 0
14 22 Yuki Tsunoda Red Bull Racing 58 +83.794s 0
15 12 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 58 +84.399s 0
16 23 Alexander Albon Williams 58 +90.327s 0
17 6 Isack Hadjar Racing Bulls 57 +1 lap 0
18 30 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls 57 +1 lap 0
19 10 Pierre Gasly Alpine 57 +1 lap 0
20 43 Franco Colapinto Alpine 57 +1 lap 0

Note – Albon received a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Gasly received a five-second time penalty for exceeding track limits. Stroll and Bearman received five-second time penalties for making more than one change of direction.

 

Greg Engle
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