Norris wins the title for the first time, Verstappen ends the year with the most victories and Hamilton’s 18-season streak of consecutive podiums comes to an end. Here are the facts and statistics from the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix!
LANDO NORRIS: WORLD CHAMPION
Lando Norris’ third place finish in the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix secured his status as 2025 Formula 1 World Champion.
Norris became the 35th different driver to have won the World Championship. He became the first new driver to be crowned World Champion since Max Verstappen in 2021.
Norris is Britain’s 11th World Champion, extending the nation’s record for the most championship-winning drivers. Norris is the first new British champion since Jenson Button in 2009.
Norris became the fourth driver – after Nigel Mansell, Jenson Button and Nico Robserg – to make as many as 150 starts before winning the title for the first time.
Norris is the eighth driver to have won the title with McLaren, after Emerston Fittipaldi, James Hunt, Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Mika Hakkinen and Lewis Hamilton. He is the first McLaren driver to win the title since Hamilton in 2008.
This is the 14th time that the Drivers’ Championship has been decided by two or fewer points. It is the first time it has happened since 2008, when Lewis Hamilton won by a single point.
Norris is the fifth driver to win his first title in his seventh season in Formula 1, after Mike Hawthorn, Jochen Rindt, Kimi Raikkonen and Max Verstappen.
At 26 years and 24 days old, Norris became the seventh-youngest driver to have won the World Championship. He was 16 days older than Verstappen was when he won his third title at the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix.
Norris is the first driver for a team other than Red Bull or Mercedes to win the Drivers’ Championship since Jenson Button won with Brawn GP in 2009.
VERSTAPPEN WINS THE 2025 ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX
Max Verstappen took victory in the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, recording the 71st victory of his career.
This was Verstappen’s eighth victory of the 2025 season, meaning he ends the year as the driver with the most wins. It is the first season that the driver with the most wins was not crowned World Champion since 2016, when Lewis Hamilton had ten wins to Nico Rosberg’s nine.
Verstappen equalled Lewis Hamilton for the most wins at Yas Marina Circuit. This was his fifth victory at the track in the last six years.
This was Verstappen’s tenth successive podium finish. It is only the eighth time that a driver has taken as many as ten podium finishes in a row and Verstappen is only the third driver – after Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton – to achieve a streak of ten successive podiums on two occasions in his career.
This was the first time Verstappen took as many as three wins in a row since winning nine consecutive races between the 2023 Japanese Grand Prix and the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Verstappen was voted Driver Of The Day for the fourth race in a row, becoming the first driver to win the vote at four successive events.
This was the 11th year in a row that the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix polesitter went on to win the race. It sets a new record for the most consecutive wins from pole at a circuit, taking the record from Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, where ten races in a row were won from pole from 2001 to 2010.
Red Bull extended their record for the most team wins at Yas Marina Circuit to eight.
Verstappen secured Red Bull’s 14th podium finish at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, equalling Mercedes for the most top three finishes at the track.
Verstappen extended his record for most appearances at Yas Marina Circuit without recording a DNF to 11.
PIASTRI FINISHES RUNNER-UP
Oscar Piastri finished as runner-up in the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix; a result which secured him third place in the Drivers’ Championship.
This was the second race in a row at which Piastri finished as runner-up. These were his first successive podium finishes since the Dutch and Italian Grands Prix.
This was Piastri’s first top five finish at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
With both Piastri and Norris on the podium, this was the first Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in which both McLaren drivers finished in the top three since 2011.
Piastri and Norris continued their records of scoring points on every visit to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Felipe Massa and Paul di Resta are the only other drivers who’ve scored on every appearance at Yas Marina Circuit.
IN THE POINTS
Charles Leclerc was the highest-finishing Ferrari driver in the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, finishing fourth. It ensured that 2025 became the 17th season in which Ferrari did not achieve a Grand Prix win, after 1950, 1957, 1962, 1965, 1967, 1969, 1973, 1980, 1986, 1991, 1992, 1993, 2014, 2016, 2020 and 2021.
Leclerc secured the fastest lap of the race – the first time he has done so since the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix.
This was the first season in which neither Ferrari driver finished on the podium at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix since 2020.
Leclerc finished off the podium at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix for the first time since 2021.
Finishing fifth in the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, George Russell became the 12th driver in Formula 1 history to finish every race in a season. 2025 is the third year in a row that a driver has achieved the feat. Russell continued his 16-race scoring streak.
This was the third time in the last four Abu Dhabi races that Russell finished in fifth place.
With sixth place, Fernando Alonso recorded his first top six finish since finishing fifth in the Hungarian Grand Prix.
This was Alonso’s first top six finish at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix since he finished fifth in 2013.
Esteban Ocon finished seventh, recording his first top seven result since finishing seventh in the Monaco Grand Prix. His only better result of the season was a fifth place finish in the Chinese Grand Prix.
Ocon recorded Haas’ best ever result at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. This was only the third Yas Marina race in which the team scored points.
Ocon equalled his best-ever Abu Dhabi Grand Prix result, having last finished seventh here in 2022.
Lewis Hamilton’s eighth place finish at the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix makes 2025 the first season in his career in which he did not finish on the podium in any Grand Prix. It ended his record streak of 18 consecutive seasons with a podium finish and made him the first Ferrari driver to fail to secure a podium finish in an entire season since Kimi Raikkonen in 2014.
Hamilton has scored points in three of the last five races. Each time he has scored points, he did so with an eighth place finish. Of his last six points finishes, only one (a fourth place finish in the United States Grand Prix) was not an eighth place finish.
Crossing the finish line at Yas Marina Circuit for the 14th time, Hamilton and Alonso set a new record for the most races completed at the track, moving clear of Sebastian Vettel at the top of the list.
Finishing ninth, Nico Hulkenberg scored points for the fourth time in the last six races.
Hulkenberg became only the second driver for the Sauber team to score a point at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in the last 13 seasons. The only other Sauber driver to have done so is Charles Leclerc, who finished seventh in 2018.
Lance Stroll ended an eight-race point-less streak with a tenth place finish in the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. This was the first race in which he scored points since the Dutch Grand Prix.
This was the third time in the last four years that both Aston Martin drivers scored points in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
THE OTHER FINISHERS
With Carlos Sainz finishing 13th and Alex Albon 16th, this was the eighth consecutive Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in which Williams failed to score a point.
This was only the second time in the last eight years that Sainz did not score a point at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Finishing 14th, Yuki Tsunoda failed to score a point for the 13th time in the last 17 race weekends.
Tsunoda became the first Red Bull driver to finish the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix but fail to score a point. The previous five point-less appearances for Red Bull drivers in Abu Dhabi were all non-finishes.
Kimi Antonelli finished 15th in the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, failing to score a point for the first time since the United States Grand Prix.
Antonelli became only the second Mercedes driver – after Lewis Hamilton in 2022 – to fail to score a point in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix since 2015.
Finishing 20th, Franco Colapinto ensured he became one of only two drivers not to score a point in the 2025 season. The only other driver who raced but failed to score a point in 2025 was Jack Doohan, who Colapinto replaced after six races.
Every driver finished the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. It was the fourth race of the year which all 20 drivers finished, after the Japanese, Belgian and Singapore Grands Prix. It was the first Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to not have any retirees.