Pole sitter Max Verstappen has won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, underlining Red Bull’s resurgence in the second half of the season. Oscar Piastri finished in second place while Lando Norris 3rd place secures him the 2025 Formula One World Champion’s title.
When the lights went out, Verstappen immediately came across the track to prevent Norris from getting alongside and having the inside of Turn 1. That meant Verstappen maintained first with Norris and Piastri close behind. Russell meanwhile had a less successful start and dropped from 4th to 6th with Alonso challenging Leclerc for 4th throughout the first lap.
Piastri also didn’t sit about and enjoyed a great draft behind Norris to end up passing his teammate for second place around the outside of Turn 9.
By the start of lap 4 Verstappen had a two second lead over Piastri with Norris also having lost DRS on his teammate. Leclerc on the other hand was glued on Norris’s rear. Alonso lost touch with Leclerc and later in that lap lost 5th position to Russell. Bortoleto followed in 7th, then Hadjar, Ocon and Tsunoda completing the top 10. The latter was notably on the hard tyre, looking for a long first stint to possibly become a factor after the medium runners pitted.
Further back, Hamilton had gained a couple of positions up into 13th while Antonelli and Stroll were sort of stuck in 16th and 17th position with their teammates doing considerably better. Together with Piastri and Tsunoda they are the only ones to have start on the hard compound Pirelli tyres.
On lap 8, Hulkenberg was the first to pit, followed by Hamilton and Albon one lap later. The trio exchanged their soft tyres from the start and went for hard tyres. At that time, Hamilton was just ahead of Hulkenberg and Albon in 18th, 14 seconds behind Colapinto.
By lap 13 Piastri seemed to find better pace compared to Verstappen, slowly reducing the Dutchman’s advantage that was 2.2 seconds at its peak. Graining furned out to be a widespread problem, and somewhat unexpected for the teams but it caused some medium runners like Russell, Hadjar and Gasly to switch to hard on lap 14.
Norris, Leclerc and Alonso then also opted to pit at the end of lap 16. Norris rejoined the track in 9th place, behind a train led by Lawson, followed by Stroll, Sainz and Antonelli. Norris quickly passed Antonelli and Sainz and overtook Stroll and Lawson in one go on the straight in lap 19.
Leclerc followed through in similar fashion, overtaking Stroll and Lawson in one go one lap later.
On lap 25 Norris got DRS on Tsunoda with the latter aggressively defending on the straight and in fact forcing Norris past the white lines to avoid crashing into him. Norris got the overtake done nonetheless and Tsunoda was to receive a 5s penalty later for weaving. This was immediately followed by a “Box Box” signal for Verstappen. The Red Bull driver switched to hard tyres and rejoined in second place, 5 seconds ahead of Norris and 18 behind Piastri. The latter had seen his deficit to Verstappen increase again to nearly 3 seconds before the stop.
The next few laps saw Verstappen and Norris lap about a second a lap faster than Piastri. Leclerc did even better with a fastest lap after having a much easier time passing Tsunoda. Norris followed that up with a fastest lap of his own in lap 28.
Hamilton then appeared in the pitlane on lap 32 to change his hard tyres for a final stint on medium. Tsunoda, Lawson and Antonelli did the same one lap later. This essentially opened the pit window for Piastri who was aiming for a single stopper, lapping a steady full second slower then those behind him, nearing 1.3 seconds per lap after Verstappen upped his pace following his engineer’s note about Piastri’s likely single-stop strategy.
Stroll meanwhile ran in 6th position, also still on the hard tyres he started on.
At the start of lap 41, Verstappen had pretty much reeled in Piastri, and in fact passed him for the lead. Strangely, Norris was pitted at that time, changing to mediums. Piastri was only lapped the next lap, resulting in him returning to the track in second still, 4 seconds ahead of Norris.
14 laps from the end, Verstappen looked set for a comfortably victory, enjoying a 22 second advantage over Piastri on fresh mediums. Norris sat third, completing his third stint on hard tyres. Charles Leclerc was 4th, 4 seconds behind the podium and on medium tyres.
Crucially for Norris, losing 3rd to Leclerc would also lose him the championship to Verstappen. The pace of the two however was similar with the gap still 4 seconds on lap 50, with 8 remaining.
Apart from the top 4 coming closer together towards the end, the positions and therefore the outcome didn’t change, ensuring victory for Max Verstappen and the first World Championship for McLaren’s Lando Norris.