Verstappen vs. Norris: The Fight for the World Title is Decided in Abu Dhabi
The 2025 Formula 1 season promises an electrifying end. The battle for the championship will be decided in the final race in Abu Dhabi, after Max Verstappen took the victory at the Qatar Grand Prix, while Lando Norris, the leader of the standings, finished in fourth place. Verstappen, now Norris’s closest rival, arrives at the last race with a minimal disadvantage. Oscar Piastri, who held second place in the standings, dropped to third place after his second place in Qatar. Verstappen’s victory reduces the gap to just 12 points with Norris, ensuring a season finale full of excitement, with a maximum of 25 points at stake. Piastri, visibly disappointed after the race, is 16 points behind his teammate. The McLaren team made a strategic decision that cost him the opportunity to fight for the victory.Speechless.
Oscar Piastri
The race in Qatar was defined by a safety car on lap 7, caused by a collision between Nico Hülkenberg and Pierre Gasly at the exit of turn 1. McLaren’s drivers were the only ones who didn’t make the most of an efficient pit stop during the safety car, a crucial decision due to the 25-lap stint restriction established before the race due to tire wear. Upon entering the pits on lap 7, most competitors, including Verstappen, committed to two stints of 25 laps until the end of the race, while McLaren still had two stops to make when the race resumed on lap 10.Everything is possible now! We’ll see. I don’t worry too much.
Max Verstappen
For McLaren’s strategy to work, both drivers needed to build a significant advantage over Verstappen, but ultimately lacked the pace to achieve it.
Following the maximum length of 25 laps per stint, Verstappen made his last pit stop on lap 32 and came out only 3.2 seconds behind Norris and 7.6 seconds behind Piastri, knowing that both McLarens still had a stop to make. Piastri fought to extend his lead over Verstappen during his second stint and, therefore, pitted on lap 42 to put on new tires in an attempt to chase the Red Bull to the end of the race. The Australian reduced the gap to 7.9 seconds at the flag, but never really looked in a position to win after McLaren opted not to pit during the safety car. Norris, who evidently had performance issues, made his second pit stop on lap 45, but in doing so fell to fifth place, behind Carlos Sainz and Kimi Antonelli. Norris caught up with Antonelli on lap 50 of 57, but remained behind the Mercedes until the last lap, when Antonelli made a mistake and Norris overtook him. Despite getting within less than a second of Sainz at the end, he couldn’t pressure the Williams driver, who secured his second podium of the debut season with the British team. Sainz stated: “I am very happy, very proud of the whole team, of what we have done today because we came to this weekend thinking it was going to be the most difficult weekend of the year and suddenly we come out with a podium. We nailed the race pace. I was super fast, much faster than expected. We nailed the strategy, we nailed the tire management, the start, the defense and the management, and that gave us an unexpected podium, so I couldn’t be prouder.” Behind Antonelli in fifth place, George Russell finished sixth after a bad start that caused him to drop down the order on the last lap. Fernando Alonso took seventh place despite a spin mid-race and Charles Leclerc salvaged eighth place from another disappointing race weekend for Ferrari. Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda took the last points on offer in ninth and tenth place.
