F1 in Abu Dhabi: And that’s the championship

A three-way fight down to the wire as the ground effect era comes to a close.

The 2025 Formula 1 World Championship drew to a close this past weekend in Abu Dhabi, and with it came the end of the current generation of cars. After a grueling 24 races, the title was decided in a three-way fight by the finest of margins; just two points, less than half a percent, separated the winning driver from second place when the checkered flag waved on Sunday.

Coming into Abu Dhabi, McLaren’s Lando Norris was, if not a comfortable favorite, then at least the driver with the highest odds of prevailing. After a strong start to the season, the British driver’s form dipped at the Dutch Grand Prix. But he bounced back, retaking the championship lead from his Australian teammate Oscar Piastri in Mexico in October.

For much of the season, it seemed to be a two-car race. McLaren had a clear car advantage and two strong drivers, suggesting a repeat of the years we saw Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg duking it out to bring home titles for Mercedes. But that didn’t figure on Red Bull developing its car late in the season. New boss Laurent Mekies has revitalized the energy drinks squad, and four-time champion Max Verstappen was able to close inexorably toward the McLaren drivers in the points with a string of sublime performances.

At times, McLaren seemed to try to help him. Its commitment to scrupulous fairness between its own two drivers sometimes disadvantaged both. Then a double disqualification in Las Vegas gave Verstappen a huge catch-up.

Things got worse last weekend in Qatar (apologies for no race report; I took some time off, even if F1 didn’t). A perfectly timed safety car saw the entire field—minus the McLarens, running at the front—stopped for tires in a 57-lap race where Pirelli restricted the maximum stint length for anyone to just 25 laps. In effect, the entire grid got a free pit stop over the two orange cars, which tried to use their pace advantage to claw back the 16-odd seconds they lost to everyone else to no avail. Norris could have wrapped the thing up then, but it instead went to the final race.

Going into the final race—worth 25 points for a win—Norris was on 408, Verstappen on 396, and Piastri on 392 points. A podium finish was all Norris needed to seal the championship. If Verstappen won and Norris came fourth or worse, the Dutch driver would claim his fifth championship. Piastri, for a long time the title leader, had the hardest task of all—nothing less than a win, and some misfortune for the other two, would do.

Qualifying went Verstappen’s way, with Norris a few hundredths of a second faster than Piasrtri for second and third. The Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and the Mercedes of George Russell could have complicated things by inserting themselves between our three protagonists but came up short.

The big day

Come race day, Verstappen made an OK start, defended his position, then got his head down and drove to the checkered flag. The Yas Marina circuit, which is reportedly the most expensive race track ever created, had some corners reprofiled in 2021 to improve the racing, so the kind of “slow your rival down and back them into the chasing pack” games that Lewis Hamilton tried to play with Nico Rosberg in 2016 no longer work.

Verstappen was pursued by Piastri, who saw a chance to pass Norris on lap 1 and took it. For his part, Norris let him go, then gave his team some cause for panic by letting Leclerc’s Ferrari close to within a second before showing more speed. An early pit stop meant Norris had to do some overtaking on track. Which he did decisively, a far cry from the more timid driver we saw at times earlier this year.

Verstappen’s teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, was in one of the cars he needed to pass. Promoted from the junior Racing Bulls squad after just two races this season, Tsunoda has had the typically torrid time of Red Bull’s second driver, and Abu Dhabi was to be his last race for the team after scoring less than a tenth as many points as Verstappen. Tsunoda tried to hold up Norris and ran him to the far edge of the track but gained a five-second penalty for swerving in the process.

For once, McLaren split its strategies, letting Piastri run long on the hard tire to box Verstappen in. The Australian chased down Verstappen at the end thanks to a set of fresh softs but ultimately finished in second, nearly 13 seconds down the road, with Norris another four seconds behind.

Some supporters—the ones who put the “anatic” back in “fan”—will be upset that their preferred driver didn’t triumph, but frankly, any one of the three would have been a worthy champion.

All change

Will F1’s second ground effect era be mourned? The cars have been larger and heavier than ever, with tightly controlled design parameters that, after several years, have seen the teams all converge in performance. They have little suspension travel and suffer from ride-height sensitivity and a general lack of setup freedom compared to earlier generations of cars.

The first preseason test for the 2026 season is at the end of January, the first of three before the Australian Grand Prix kicks things off on March 6. The new machines will be slightly smaller and lighter, with bigger batteries and a more powerful electric motor, plus active aerodynamics to reduce drag on the straights.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post. Feedback welcome.

Posted Tuesday 9 December 2025 at 3:41 am AEST (my time).

News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of November): 5,412

RIP Matrix