Lando Norris Makes History Winning 2025 F1 World Drivers' Championship in Abu Dhabi

A third-place finish in Sunday's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was enough for Lando Norris to secure his first Formula One drivers' championship.

Max Verstappen, the four-time reigning F1 champion, claimed the checkered flag at Yas Marina Circuit, but he came up two points short of overtaking Norris on the final day.

Norris, Verstappen and Oscar Piastri all had a path to the drivers' title.

Norris and Piastri's disqualification from the Las Vegas Grand Prix in November provided some late drama, and Verstappen's victory in the Qatar Grand Prix gave him more hope of completing a miracle turnaround.

Going into Sunday, Norris was first in the drivers' standings with 408 points. Verstappen was in second with 396, while Piastri was in third in 392.

The math was pretty straightforward for Norris in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. A podium showing would be enough for the title regardless of where Verstappen and Piastri placed. Anything below that opened the door wide open for one of the two challengers.

The 26-year-old drove like somebody who knew he needed to be high up the leaderboard but could ill afford a catastrophic mistake.

Norris made an aggressive move on Lap 23 to overtake Yuki Tsunoda for third. He proved difficult to dislodge from that spot for the remainder of the race.

He's the first McLaren driver to reign supreme since Lewis Hamilton in 2008, and the team coasted to the constructors' championship by 364 points.

Verstappen and Red Bull are left to wonder what could've been. He won eight races, one more than Norris and Piastri, and he was brilliant down the home stretch.

That will make the 28-year-old's struggles months ago a little more frustrating in retrospect. Getting knocked out of the Austrian Grand Prix was as costly as everyone feared, and only winding up in 10th in the Spanish Grand Prix weeks before that was a big setback.

The impact of Laurent Mekies as team principal after replacing Christian Horner at least bodes well for Verstappen's bid to dethrone Norris in 2026.