If there’s something I did not expect from this sometimes-unpredictable, oft-chaotic, and almost always-entertaining Formula 1 season in its last race, Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, it was a perfectly calm drive from Lando Norris. Entering the race weekend, Norris and his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri had a tangible goal in mind: Outscore Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz by 21 points (or more), and the papaya-clad team would lift its first Constructors’ Championship trophy since 1998. Given that Leclerc had a bit of a kerfuffle in qualifying on top of a 10-grid penalty for an engine swap, leaving him starting in 19th, this felt like a shoo-in for McLaren.
Then, as he often does in good and bad ways, Max Verstappen struck. This time, he did so quite literally: On the first turn of the race, Verstappen, who started fifth, tried to overtake Piastri in typical Verstappen manner, and misjudged his dive bomb, instead hitting Piastri and spinning both drivers to the back of the grid.
In the chaos that ensued, Leclerc managed to climb all the way to eighth by the end of the first lap, and suddenly, Ferrari had some hope. It shouldn’t have had any hope, though, because Norris raced what was possibly the most mature and even-keeled race of his career to date, in a season where he achieved the highs—his first four race wins—and lows—he lost so many places on his first laps, going a long way towards costing him in the drivers’ championship—of the kind of high-octane racing that his potential has always hinted at.
Starting on pole position, Norris avoided the Verstappen of it all right at the start, and then simply took a relaxing Sunday drive through the Yas Marina Circuit, never really feeling the heat from Sainz, who emerged from lap one in second place, or from Leclerc, who managed to shoot his Ferrari up from eighth to third by the end of the race. Norris’ lead up front never really dipped below two seconds, often ranging around four, more than enough time to offset any Ferrari tactical plans.
Ferrari did try, though. The eventual runners-up pitted Sainz a lap before Norris, hoping to undercut the McLaren race leader, but the gap for Norris at the front was big enough that he was able to pit one lap later and still come out with about two seconds of lead time. Credit here to the McLaren pit crew, which proved why the Constructors’ Championship even exists; F1 is a team sport in a lot of ways, and the crew’s two-second pit stop in the most high-pressure moment of their season was worthy of a trophy.
With that one obstacle cleared, and no safety cars coming, Norris was able to nurse his hard tires, a compound that under-performed the mediums somewhat on Sunday, while Sainz and Leclerc both had to push as hard as possible to try to both pass Norris; a Ferrari 1-2 would have handed the Scuderia the championship instead. Alas, Norris did his job admirably, leading from wire-to-wire—save for his post-pit stop period, of course—for all 58 laps.
It became obvious with about 15 laps to go that, short of an act of God or Fred Vasseur, Norris was going to lead McLaren to the title. Luckily, this F1 season had a bit more drama and emotion to squeeze out the races, something of a return to form for competition after two straight years of post-regulation change dominance from Verstappen and Red Bull.
Mostly, that means Lewis Hamilton, who started 16th but managed to shoot up to fifth. While a podium grew more unlikely with each lap, as Leclerc pulled back the throttle a bit to get his tires to the end of the race without incident, Hamilton was able to creep up on his soon-to-be-former Mercedes teammate George Russell. In his last race for the constructor that he won six world titles with, Hamilton engaged one last bit of his Silver Arrow magic and charged up to Russell’s back, passing him with a beautiful move on the final lap to conclude his Mercedes career in fourth.
Not a fitting spot for someone who won so many races with the team, but a fitting end for a season that had been difficult and exhilarating almost in equal fashion for Hamilton. His post-race message was almost as teary-eyed as his post-Silverstone victory tour; speaking to the team but mainly to his engineer, Peter “Bono” Bonnington and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, Hamilton reminisced on his 12 years with Mercedes quite beautifully:
The pleasure’s been mine. Yea Bono, we dreamed alone, but together we believed. And as a team, we achieved things that… Thank you for all the courage, the determination, the passion, and for seeing me and supporting me. What started out as a leap of faith turned into a journey into the history books. We did everything together and I’m so so grateful to everyone. From the bottom of my heart; all the best.
(For his part, Bonnington sounded like he too was holding back tears, telling Hamilton that he was proud to be a part of “this chapter of your life.”)
And so, F1 heads into the winter break ahead of what should be another transformative season up and down the grid. Drivers are swapping around all over the place; Hamilton is off to Ferrari, Sainz to Williams, Sergio Pérez—whose own race on Sunday ended in a DNF retirement, fittingly for Red Bull’s mess of a second driver—might be out of a seat, and that’s just the titularies. Alpine is bringing up Jack Doohan to replace Esteban Ocon, who is off to Haas, replacing Nico Hulkenberg, who is off to Sauber, and so on. There will be at least three rookies on the grid, as well.
Entering the last season before the regulations change again in 2026, F1 is at least in a healthy spot with regards to parity, even if Verstappen ended up walking away smiling with his fourth drivers’ title in a row. Thanks to Norris’s season, though, and perhaps especially his final race of this breakthrough year, McLaren will head into next season as champions, and Norris’s immediate post-race reaction, that next year might be his year, might not be as much of a pipe dream as it might have seemed at the start of 2024. For that, among many other reasons, this F1 season turned out to be exactly what the sport needed to shake off the cobwebs that had grown since 2022.
