Max Verstappen en route to victory Sunday in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. (Guido De Bortoli/LAT Images for Red Bull photo)

By Thomas Hughes, SWN Staff Writer

YAS ISLAND, Abu Dhabi (Dec. 7, 2025) –  Though Oracle Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen won the proverbial battle Sunday with a season-ending victory in the Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, he did not win the war.

With a third-place finish, Verstappen’s year-long rival – McLaren’s Lando Norris – secured the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship, after delivering the steady, relatively mistake-free drive he needed to claim the title.

Verstappen closed the season with his series-leading eighth victory on Sunday, but the gap in the standings was just too large to overcome, having come into the finale 12 points down on Norris.

Norris finished the season with 423 points, two ahead of Verstappen (421) and 11 ahead of McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri (412), who crossed second in the race and 12.594 seconds behind Verstappen’s winning Red Bull-Honda.

Consequently, McLaren swept both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships, the latter of which they secured after Singapore in October.

Norris entered the finale with a clear objective: finish on the podium and the championship was his, regardless of what Verstappen accomplished.

And Verstappen controlled the race from start to finish, winning by 12.6 seconds in one of his cleanest drives of the season, doing all that was in his control to wrest the crown away from Norris. But Norris executed his own race with precision.

He brought his McLaren home in third place, 6.7 seconds ahead of Scuderia Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and behind Verstappen and Piastri, sealing the title with the composure of a driver far more experienced than his age.

Verstappen’s late-season surge made the finale tight, as he won six of the final nine races and three in a row to close 2025, but Norris’ resolve held to cap off off the most consistent campaign of his young career.

Verstappen’s late-season charge created pressure, but Norris never cracked, collecting points in every race after the summer break even as Verstappen made up a plethora of points.

The Dutchman came from 104 points back with nine races left and 49 back with three rounds to go to come within a whisker of extending his championship reign.

But despite the heat from Verstappen — and the setback of his team’s disqualification in the United States Grand Prix — Norris stayed composed and kept fighting. Verstappen did the same, even as he fell short.

“The team, everyone has a lot to be proud of,” Verstappen said. “Thanks to them for never giving up and staying in the fight. Congrats to Lando. We’ll see what we get next year … but no regrets. We did all we could.”

Verstappen briefly extended a glimmer of hope when he noticed that the top-16 was in the pit delta window, perhaps for a moment thinking that others could make a run at Norris for position. But that hope was quickly dashed.

Though Verstappen won his third straight race and eighth of the campaign, marking the 71st win of his illustrious F-1 career, it ultimately left him just short of his fifth straight title.

“It just wasn’t meant to be this year,” Verstappen remarked.

Behind the podium, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finished fourth and Mercedes’ George Russell was fifth. Fernando Alonso, Esteban Ocon, seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, Nico Hulkenberg, and Lance Stroll closed out the points in a caution-free race from start to finish.

The championship’s stakes extended beyond the title fight, with Aston Martin’s Alonso jumping Kick Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg to 10th in the championship with a six-point swing Sunday.

In the final constructor’s standings, there were no shifts, although Red Bull (451) ended the season third, just 18 points behind Mercedes (469). Racing Bulls also narrowly finished sixth with 92 points, three points ahead of seventh-placed Aston Martin (89), which accumulated nine points in the season finale.

The midfield battle was far more balanced this season, with eight teams surpassing 70 points for the first time since 2012. This year, nine teams cleared that mark — a record in the current points era, which began in 2010.

Now, Formula 1 shifts into its winter reset. Teams will regroup, dissect data and prepare the first iterations of their 2026-spec challengers. The next time cars hit the track will be Feb. 11 in Sakhir, Bahrain for preseason testing, ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, set for March 6-8.

Until then, the sport enters its brief offseason, one that McLaren and Norris will savor as they look ahead to defending their newly earned crown in three months’ time.

The finish:

1. Max Verstappen, 2. Oscar Piastri, 3. Lando Norris, 4. Charles Leclerc, 5. George Russell, 6. Fernando Alonso, 7. Esteban Ocon, 8. Lewis Hamilton, 9. Nico Hulkenberg, 10. Lance Stroll, 11. Gabriel Bortoleto, 12. Ollie Bearman, 13. Carlos Sainz, 14. Yuki Tsunoda, 15. Kimi Antonelli, 16. Alex Albon, 17. Isack Hadjar, 18. Liam Lawson, 19. Pierre Gasly, 20. Franco Colapinto.