{"id":192825,"date":"2025-12-08T03:01:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T03:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/lando-norris-wins-formula-1-world-championship-in-the-final-race-of-2025-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T03:01:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T03:01:20","slug":"lando-norris-wins-formula-1-world-championship-in-the-final-race-of-2025-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/lando-norris-wins-formula-1-world-championship-in-the-final-race-of-2025-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Lando Norris wins Formula 1 world championship in the final race of 2025 – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Lando Norris<\/a> captured his first ever Formula 1 world championship in the final race of 2025 on Sunday, completing a comeback in a captivating and unpredictable season.
The 26-year-old McLaren racer finished ahead of rivals Max Verstappen of Red Bull and Oscar Piastri of McLaren in the standings after all three entered<\/a> the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with a chance of becoming the world champion.
Norris played the long game in the race, knowing he only needed a podium finish to clinch the trophy regardless of where his rivals finished. He kept his composure despite an early threat from the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and a few close calls in wheel-to-wheel racing after pitting for fresh tires and coming out in traffic.
\u201cIt\u2019s a long journey,\u201d an emotional and jubilant Norris said in a postrace interview broadcast on F1TV, thanking his team and his family, with whom he celebrated. \u201cIt feels amazing. … I\u2019m just crazy happy.\u201d
Norris finished the race third, behind Verstappen and Piastri.
\u201cI felt calm until three corners to go,\u201d Norris told reporters after the podium celebrations at the champion’s press conference. \u201cI started to shake a little bit. I got to think of all those incredible memories, very quickly, and I got see the team when I went over the line. And this is a moment that I\u2019ll never forget.\u201d
Entering the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Norris held a 12-point lead over Verstappen and a 16-point lead over Piastri, with a maximum of 25 points awarded for victory. In the end, Norris finished 2 points ahead of Verstappen and 13 points ahead of Piastri.
Despite Verstappen\u2019s victory in Abu Dhabi, Norris ended his four-year reign of world championships, making him the first British F1 champion since Lewis Hamilton in 2020. It is McLaren\u2019s first drivers\u2019 championship since 2008 \u2014 also won by Hamilton in a season-ending thriller \u2014 and the first since 1998 when the team won both the driver\u2019s and constructors\u2019 championships.
It came one year after Norris lost the championship to Verstappen \u2014 and boldly proclaimed after winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2024, \u201cNext year is going to be my year.\u201d
He made good on it \u2014 but it was anything but a straightforward season.
After a breakout season last year, which included his first ever victory in F1, Norris entered 2025 as the title favorite<\/a> and won the opening race. But Piastri soon began to outshine him and took the championship lead, holding it for most of the season. In the final stretch, Piastri slumped while Norris went on a hot streak, and the British driver regained the championship lead in late October, never to relinquish it.
\u201cI had a lot of tough moments in the beginning of the season. I had great moments,\u201d he said. \u201cIt just shows that just consistency over a year is what helps achieve what we\u2019ve achieved today.\u201d
\u201cThose tricky moments \u2014 you\u2019ve got to learn from them,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was those doubts I had at the beginning of the year, and I proved myself wrong.\u201d
While Norris\u2019 talent has never been in doubt, his consistency and mentality faced questions this season. At times, Norris appeared to be his own biggest adversary, making unforced errors that cost him points. He overcame those demons throughout the season by stepping back from social media<\/a> and, as he put it after a dominant victory in Brazil last month, learning to \u201cjust ignore everyone that talks crap about you.\u201d
Meanwhile, Verstappen looked down and out in the middle of the season, falling 104 points off the lead after the Dutch Grand Prix in August. But he fought his way back with a series of stellar performances and unforced errors by McLaren, most notably with a double-disqualification due to illegal plank wear in last month\u2019s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
At the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Verstappen qualified on pole position and held his lead at the start, moving over aggressively to cover off Norris, who started second and lost a position to Piastri on the opening lap. Norris settled down into third place and managed his tires as Piastri sought to attack Verstappen\u2019s lead and put him under pressure.
Norris was the first of the title contenders to pit for fresh tires, on Lap 17, coming out into traffic and having to overtake a slew of cars that stayed out, giving him a few nervous moments.
Red Bull kept its second driver, Yuki Tsunoda, out to block Norris in order to help Verstappen. But the gambit failed and Norris breezed past as Tsunoda was slapped with a five-second time penalty for improper blocking tactics.
In a midrace interview that aired on the ESPN broadcast, McLaren CEO Zak Brown called it \u201ca dangerous and unnecessary maneuver\u201d by Tsunoda.
Toward the end, Verstappen grew inquisitive on team radio about whether Norris was facing a threat from Leclerc for his vital third place finish, which his race engineer told him was doubtful.
Yet the same internal dynamics at McLaren that nearly cost them the title proved to be an asset at the end as they kept Red Bull guessing with two different strategies, which Verstappen conceded was a problem.
\u201cWhat complicated, also, a bit, was that Oscar was on a different strategy. So you never know, of course, when he then pits how much pace he has in hand to catch up,” he told reporters.
Overall, Verstappen said he was content knowing that he maximized the race with a pole position and victory: \u201cSo there was really not much that I could have done different.\u201d
\u201cMassive roller coaster for us, of course, the first half\u201d of the season, Verstappen told reporters. \u201cSome nice moments but mainly tough moments. Some really tough races and feelings. But I\u2019m also very proud of how we navigated that.\u201d
After briefly chasing Piastri for second place in the final laps, Norris backed off and settled for third place, knowing it was enough to crown him world champion.
\u201cObviously I would have wished for a slightly different ending,\u201d Piastri said after the race. \u201cBut I think this year I\u2019ve learned a hell of a lot about myself as a race car driver, myself as a person.\u201d
\u201cThere\u2019s a little bit of disappointment, obviously, but I can be very, very proud of the season I\u2019ve had,\u201d he said, while calling Norris \u201ca deserving champion.\u201d
Looking beyond 2025, F1’s regulations will reset and teams will have to build new cars from scratch, a shift expected to scramble the order. It\u2019s far from certain that McLaren will have the fastest car next year. And in 2026, F1 will welcome an 11th team to the grid: the GM-backed Cadillac<\/a>,
Norris said he still has room to grow as a driver.
\u201cI need to understand what I can do better,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like I did that this year and I\u2019ve got to do that even more next year if I want to retain what we\u2019ve been able to achieve this year.\u201d
Sahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.
© 2025 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeLando Norris captured his first ever Formula 1 world championship in the final race of 2025 on Sunday, completing a comeback in a captivating and unpredictable season.The 26-year-old McLaren racer finished ahead of rivals Max Verstappen of Red Bull and Oscar Piastri of McLaren in the standings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":192826,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-192825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}