The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this past Sunday, Dec. 7, meant the end of the 2025 Formula 1 season, and with it came disappointing results for some. McLaren’s Lando Norris dethroned four-time defending champion and Redbull driver Max Verstappen to secure his first world championship title. Although Verstappen won the GP, overcoming his 104-point deficit after the Dutch GP, Norris’ third-place finish gave him the remaining points necessary to win it all. Norris is McLaren’s first championship winner since 2008, when Lewis Hamilton last clinched the win for the team. “I didn’t think I would cry, but I did,” Norris said, visibly emotional after crossing the finish line. “It has been the last 16 to 17 years of my life chasing this dream, and today we did it!” Starting next season, Norris will swap his classic #4 for #1, a privilege reserved only for championship winners. Verstappen, who had previously used #1 since his first win in 2021, has not announced whether he’ll be reverting to his original #33.
However, the season has been somewhat marred by McLaren’s strategy interventions. Their code of conduct that ensures fairness between their two drivers, the “Papaya Rules,” named for the iconic papaya-orange color toted by McLaren, has not upheld the fairness the team claims, as interventions in various races have collectively skewed the results in favor of Norris and away from his teammate Oscar Piastri, who finished second in the Abu Dhabi GP but third in the championship. Piastri had spent most of the season ahead of both Verstappen and Norris in points, but the lead slipped from his grasp in the final few rounds of the championship, due both to driver error and strategy calls. Many fans cite the Monza GP as a critical turning point in the Papaya Rules saga, when Norris’s slow pit stop allowed Piastri to undercut him in the race. Despite claiming that their drivers were free to race, McLaren asked Piastri to switch spots with Norris, a decision that ended up being crucial to Norris. Since Norris won the Championship by only two points, many fans are left discontented by the team leadership’s apparent preference for Norris, despite their claim of equal treatment.
Although the results of the tight Championship battle have been met with mixed reactions from Formula 1 fans, there is still much to look forward to for the 2026 season. With upcoming regulation changes for next season, the cars premiering at the Australian GP in March will be quite different from the high-downforce cars that have been on the grid from 2021-2025. Additionally, 2026 will see the inclusion of an eleventh F1 team, Cadillac, which will be bringing back veteran drivers Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas to kick off their Formula 1 journey. Perhaps 2026’s battle will echo the same powerhouse battle between Norris, Verstappen and Piastri, or perhaps it will see someone entirely different vie for the title. With so little data about the new cars, all bets are off until it’s “lights out and away we go” in Australia.
Contact the editors responsible for this story: Finley Tipton and Katie McCabe
