Lando Norris ended his Formula 1 season by winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at a canter and giving McLaren their first constructors’ championship since 1998.
Norris fired perfectly from pole position to secure a healthy lead across the field, but McLaren’s comfortable grip on the title trophy was temporarily loosened when team-mate Oscar Piastri started in second but was spun at the first turn by Max Verstappen. I lost.
Verstappen charged into the left-hander, optimistically aiming for second, and his front right wheel tagged Piastri’s left rear, causing both cars to spin on the track. Verstappen rejoined in 11th, while Piastri restarted in 20th and last.
The stewards will give Verstappen a 10-second penalty for the contact in turn one at the start.#Abu Dhabi GP pic.twitter.com/yACly3d4Qg
— Formula 1 (@F1) December 8, 2024
Meanwhile, Ferrari was capitalizing on the first lap carnage.
Carlos Sainz, who started in third, worked his way through a spinning Piastri and Verstappen to take second, while team-mate Charles Leclerc completed an 11-place climb on the first lap to finish eighth and put himself in unlikely podium contention. .
The highlight of Leclerc’s grueling first lap was the chicane splitting the back straight, which saw him take four places with one outside move. The quadruple pass was facilitated by Valtteri Bottas tagging Sergio Perez at the apex of turn six just before Leclerc arrived on the scene. The Finn, facing the final grand prix of his career, forced Perez, facing perhaps his final F1 race, into a clumsy spin.
It was an immediate disaster for Piastri and the McLaren MCL38, and Verstappen and Red Bull also paid a heavy price. Andy Horn/Motorsports Images
The Mexican almost pulled away from the spot and Bottas was handed a 10-second penalty to ensure Red Bull Racing finished third in the constructors’ title table. It was the first time in more than 40 years that the season’s best driver competed for a team ranked third or lower in the championship.
Due to Perez’s stop, a virtual safety car left Leclerc in 8th, but he immediately moved up once racing resumed, passing to net 4th just before the first pit stop and passing Pierre Gasly for 3rd on the following lap.
Ferrari was able to overcome McLaren’s 21-point gap with two cars on the podium, but one of them would have to win the race. As long as Norris controlled the top spot, McLaren’s lead was safe.
In a bid to get the better of the Briton, Ferrari rolled the dice on Sainz’s only pit stop and brought him in on lap 25. He was about 3.5 seconds behind Norris before he stopped, but a blistering out lap brought him within two seconds of the lead. The Briton after McLaren followed suit on the next lap.
With the tires already up to temperature, the Spaniard briefly threatened to take the lead and potentially turn the title race on its head. But after a few more laps, Norris was able to heat the rubber and rebuild the original buffer. The growth was slight but unstoppable, and by the end of the race it had increased to 5.8 seconds. By taking the checkered flag, Norris secured his team’s first constructors’ title in 25 years.
“It just seems unbelievable,” Norris said. “Not just for myself, but for the whole team. The team has done an incredible job this year to get us to where we were in the beginning.
“I’m so proud of everyone. It was an amazing trip and it’s perfect to end the season like this. If we want to win in the construction industry [championship] “After 26 years, it’s really special.”
Sainz finished a strong but ultimately incompetent second in Ferrari’s final Grand Prix, unable to keep pace with Norris for most of the race.
“It definitely feels a bit bittersweet,” he said. “In the end, I think it was as much as we could do today, considering the speed of Lando and McLaren. I gave it my all.
“I think we can be proud of the effort we put in together and the win. “It was a difficult year, but it was a year to be proud of.”
Leclerc completed a tremendous 16th place recovery from 19th on the grid to 3rd at the flag. His rise was entirely self-made, gaining 11 places on the first lap alone, without the benefit of a safety car or other significant distraction to tie the field to his advantage.
“I knew I had to be very aggressive,” he said. “I knew I had to take every possible risk to gain as much space as possible on lap one and be in a good position for the rest of the race. This has been achieved, but unfortunately we only started too far back to do anything better than what we do today.
“It’s a shame we fell short of our goal, but in the end we tried everything.”
Lewis Hamilton made a brilliant recovery from 16th on the grid to take fourth. The seven-time champion, who is due to leave Mercedes at the end of the year, gained four places on the first lap and was feisty throughout the race to move up to fifth behind team-mate George Russell with two laps remaining. A bold move to the outside at the parabolic turn 9 sealed his recovery in 12th place and left Russell 4-5 for Mercedes.
Verstappen finished sixth after receiving a 10-second penalty for pushing Piastri off the track on the first lap.
Gasly finished seventh for Alpine, ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, and secured the French-owned team sixth in the constructors’ championship, ahead of Haas.
Fernando Alonso was the highest-placed driver in 9th place, completing the race with 2 stops, while Oscar Piatri rear-ended Franco Colapinto right after the virtual race, taking 10 seconds off the mark. After receiving the penalty, he was also in the top 10 with 2 stops. The safety car period has ended. This forced Colapinto to pit stop due to a rear puncture and the Argentine later retired with a suspected power unit problem.
Alex Albon finished 11th ahead of Yuki Tsunoda, Zhou Guanyu, Lance Stroll, debutant Jack Doohan and Kevin Magnussen, who set the fastest lap of the race in the final lap as a parting gift from the Haas team.
Liam Lawson was classified 17th after making a three-lap stop on the track at home, his car smoking along the back.
