Lando Norris wins Abu Dhabi F1 GP as McLaren take first title since 1998

Lando Norris won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix for McLaren and with it secured the constructors’ championship for his team, their first since 1998. In a tense race in the season finale, Norris had to beat Ferrari on his own from pole after his teammate Oscar Piastri was all but removed from the fight on the first lap, hit by Max Verstappen.

Norris held his nerve against a determined effort from the Scuderia, who did all they could with Carlos Sainz in second and Charles Leclerc in third. Lewis Hamilton, in his final race for Mercedes, sealed a superb comeback drive to take fourth from 16th on the grid.

McLaren held all the cards going in to the race at the Yas Marina circuit, with a 21-point lead over Ferrari and the front row of the grid, but closing it out proved a high-pressure task that the team and Norris handled very well when Piastri’s part in the challenge ended within seconds of the off, spun out to last place at turn one by an over ambitious Verstappen, who finished sixth. Piastri did his best to fightback and finished in 10th.

For McLaren it was an immense achievement. The team’s last constructors’ title was won by Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard before either of their current drivers had been born. They did take the drivers’ title in 1999 with Häkkinen and Hamilton in 2008 but since then they have endured the hardest spell in the history of the British marque.

This long-awaited ninth title brings McLaren equal with the nine scored by Williams, who took their last championship in 1997, only Ferrari have more with 16. It also ends the Red Bull and Mercedes hegemony over the title which has stood since Brawn last won it in 2009.

This year they surpassed Red Bull and Ferrari by going on to overturn a 115-point deficit with the upgrades they brought to the Miami Grand Prix proving hugely effective and propelling Norris in to the title fight until he was denied by Verstappen in Las Vegas. Yet as a driver pairing, Norris and Piastri have consistently brought success. They have taken six wins and 14 podiums between them while the team have continued to develop their car in what is now an enormously tight contest at the front of the grid.

They have been found wanting on occasion operationally, and were perhaps too slow to prioritise Norris’s title challenge, but have nonetheless performed exceptionally well to deny Red Bull and see off Ferrari who have closed with a very competitive car.

Lando Norris (right) and the McLaren chief executive, Zak Brown, celebrate on the podium with bottles of champagne Photograph: Clive Mason/Getty Images

Hamilton called time on his remarkable career at Mercedes – he will join Ferrari next year – with a feisty drive from 16th. Not perhaps the celebratory affair he and the team had hoped for but a typically committed and hard-fought run from the seven-time champion.

The 39-year-old joined Mercedes in 2013 from McLaren, a move many considered foolhardy but was proved to have been an inspired decision. Over the next 12 seasons and 246 races, he claimed six titles, 84 wins, 153 podiums and 78 pole positions with the team. That it has closed with Mercedes struggling since the regulation changes of 2022 tarnishes neither Hamilton’s nor his team’s reputation.

Finally ending the relationship in Abu Dhabi was clearly an emotional moment, a chance, as things came to a halt on the start-finish straight alongside the top three drivers, to recognise the end of an era.

Norris once more demonstrated that he can do the job when the stakes are high. He held his lead into turn one but Piastri was clipped by a fast-starting Verstappen who dived late up the inside at turn one. Piastri spun but managed to continue at the back of the field and Verstappen was penalised with a 10sec stop-go for causing an accident. Leclerc had made a superb start moving up to eighth by the end of the first lap from 19th on the grid, while Hamilton advanced from 16th to 12th.

These were tense moments for McLaren with Sainz in second and Piastri out of the points and then having to pit early to change tyres he had flat-spotted when trying to pass and bumping into the rear of Franco Colapinto. Worse was to follow as Piastri received a 10sec penalty for hitting Colapinto, all but ending his contribution to the title fight.

Norris however was unperturbed and began opening a lead of more than two seconds, and with McLaren’s hopes all now on him, he maintained his control as he calmly managed his tyres in the opening stint.

For their only stops, Sainz came in on lap 26 and McLaren responded a lap later with Norris. His crew held their nerve under pressure to pull off a quick, clean stop and he emerged having maintained his lead over the Ferrari. It was a telling moment and as the laps counted down, Norris had a comfortable five second lead which he was able to maintain with cool control to take the flag and the title.

George Russell was fifth for Mercedes, Pierre Gasly seventh for Alpine, Nico Hülkenberg eighth for Haas and Fernando Alonso in ninth for Aston Martin.