Oscar Piastri won the McLaren battle at Formula 1’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but his teammate Lando Norris won the war – claiming his first world championship at the pinnacle of motor sport.
A stunning first-lap overtake from the 24-year-old Melbourne product on his teammate at turn nine kept his own dream alive of a maiden title, but it was too little, too late.
After starting third on the grid, Piastri finished 12.5 seconds adrift of race winner Max Verstappen, whose 1457-day reign as world champion came to an end by just two points. Norris, finishing in third ahead of the charging Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, had done just enough.
McLaren’s infamous “papaya rules” mantra of letting Norris and Piastri race against each other hard but fair was F1’s biggest talking point of 2025, but they had the last laugh. Fittingly, Piastri’s overtake on Norris – hard but fair – summed up their battle.
After thanking the McLaren team and his close circle of family and friends following his breakthrough title win, Norris paid special tribute to Piastri.
“Oscar’s done an incredible job,” Norris told Sky Sports.
“I’m glad I’ve had Oscar the last three years because, even though he’s still a lot newer to it than me, I’ve learnt a lot from him.
“He showed me up many times, and I’ve managed to learn a lot from him, and I wouldn’t be the driver I am today without that.
“He’s made me have to dig even deeper than I ever have before because by the midpoint of the season he was performing better than I was and doing a better job consistently.
“We take [championship] points off each other, we make our lives harder, the strategy’s always more difficult, but the team would always take that over only having one car performing for a world championship.
“At some point he’s going to get the better of me because he’s an incredible driver.”
Norris even had a laugh when he said: “Sadly, I’ve got a lot more seasons with him in the future.”
While Piastri was clearly disappointed to not come away with his first world title, he knew he’d given the season finale everything he had, and he was quick to pay credit to Norris.
“We gave it everything – we tried a bit of a gamble on strategy [starting on hard tyres and running long before pitting], and tried absolutely everything to try and win the race and give ourselves the best chance to win the championship,” he said.
“It’s been a fun challenge [taking on Norris head-to-head].
“At certain points, maybe it doesn’t feel that fun, but it’s been a really enjoyable season for both of us – and I’m saying that as the person who’s not champion.
“In the past three years I’ve learnt things every weekend from what Lando does, and it’s just nice to know that it goes both ways. There’s plenty more years to come of intense weekends and tight battles, but, ultimately, I think that’s made both of us better drivers.”
While there was talk of a perceived bias from the British team towards their British racer throughout the season – particularly following the firestorm of Monza where McLaren ordered Piastri to cede position to Norris after benefiting from a pit-stop drama that had nothing to do with him – it was Piastri who led the title race by 34 points after his win in Zandvoort in August. And it was Norris who had the better luck and showed the better qualifying and race consistency since.
Cruelly for Piastri, it was in his home race back in March in round one, when he spun off onto the wet grass and dropped out of the podium placings to finish ninth, that he had one of his most costly results. His crash at Baku in September, and brutal, overly harsh penalties at both Silverstone and in Brazil were also the stuff of nightmares for a title hopeful.
Still, with Piastri, in just his third F1 season and finishing just 13 championship points behind Norris, McLaren know they have two of the sport’s biggest stars in their ranks.
Team principal Andrea Stella also gave Piastri the highest of praise.
“Lando is the champion, [but] effectively we could have had two champions this year,” he said.
“The gap between the two was so small. After qualifying, I think it was 30 milliseconds – that was the whole story of a season.
“Oscar was a worthwhile champion, and he was a worthwhile champion in his third season in Formula 1. He learnt so rapidly, he had a couple of races where he struggled a bit in the famous low-grip tracks, [but] he learnt very rapidly what to do and became immediately competitive again. His trajectory is phenomenal, and definitely we have a future multiple world champion in Oscar.”
Stella said he was most proud of how “everyone responded to the call to elevate the game” at McLaren in 2025.
“The demand has been huge,” he said. “Two drivers in the contest, trying to do it the McLaren way, trying to be fair, respectful – it’s been a lot of work, but the team has been so united. Even when we had our bumps on the road, everyone stuck with a culture of progress.”
Stella said “there’s been more than one conversation this weekend with our drivers” about the potential of on-track changes of position between Norris and Piastri, and said McLaren “didn’t want to prevent it”.
But he was quick to add: “Even more than normal, just play it very safe.
“It was a very safe manoeuvre, but it was also interesting as a racing situation to kind of let Oscar go with the hard tyres and try and chase Max – this was, to some extent, even in the interest of Lando, himself.
“It was always a little nerve-wracking, but actually, there was a lot of preparation in terms of how we should conduct ourselves… so I would say it went according to the plan.”