Lando Norris secured his Maiden Formula One world drivers’ championship yesterday afternoon in Abu Dhabi, scoring enough points to keep teammate Oscar Piastri and resurging Max Verstappen of Red Bull out of contention. By finishing third in Sunday’s Grand Prix, Norris stayed ahead of Verstappen in the standings, clinching the title by two points.
However, whilst it was a happy ending for the British driver, his season, as well as his rivals, was fraught with a multitude of Mistakes, strategy errors, team orders, and bad luck.
Norris and Piastri dominated the first two-thirds of the season; however, the first exception to this for Lando was in Montreal, Canada. The Brit placed his McLaren where it shouldn’t have been whilst going for an overtake on his less experienced team mate. This resulted in Lando’s front wing being ripped off, forcing him to retire.
Montreal was the first time a chink was seen in McLaren’s seemingly unstoppable title charge, a weakness further highlighted by reliability issues in the Dutch Grand Prix and internal power struggles shown by team orders at Monza.
Similarly, Oscar Piastri was met with his fair share of issues, including when he spun off at home in Melbourne. This gave Norris a significant advantage in the early runnings, as Piastri only went on to finish ninth in the race after a heroic recovery from plum last. Without this mistake, he would have taken the title. Furthermore, if Piastri had claimed those lost 16 points, he would have taken the title from Norris by three points.
Further misfortune befell Piastri in Azerbaijan, as he suffered the worst race weekend of his Formula One career. Piastri crashed in both qualifying and the race, ending his dominance in 2025. What followed was a mysterious run of uncharacteristically poor form for Piastri, where he didn’t achieve a podium finish for 7 races, including Azerbaijan.
As a result of McLaren’s Blunders and errors, 4 four-time world champion Max Verstappen jumped onto a generational run of form, mounting one of the most ambitious title comebacks in Formula One history. The ‘Flying Dutchman’ closed the gap that once stood at 104 points after Zandvoort to 2 by the end of the season.
However, this exceptional end to Verstappen’s Season was only after he had encountered similar misfortunes as the McLarens’. The worst of these mistakes happened in Barcelona when the Dutchman’s infamous temper led to a deliberate impact on the side of George Russell’s Mercedes-Benz.
Another impact caused by the lockup of Russell’s rookie teammate, Kimi Antonelli’s, front axle at the Austrian Grand Prix led to Verstappen’s one and only DNF of the season, an especially painful result due to this being the home race of Red Bull Racing.
All three of 2025’s title protagonists encountered their fair share of bad luck and errors. However, Norris’s incredible final leg of the season solidified him as a deserving and worthy Champion. This was also the first time since 2009 the title hasn’t been won by a Mercedes or Red Bull driver, and the 11th time a British driver has claimed the greatest prize in motorsport.
