How Lando Norris won the 2025 F1 title: McLaren conflict and holding off Max Verstappen, Oscar Piastri - ESPN

McLaren's Lando Norris clinched his first world championship at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the final race of the 2025 Formula 1 season.

His third-place finish was enough to beat previous champion Max Verstappen, and McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri.

It was by no means a simple thing. Norris' season was a rollercoaster worthy of the type of Hollywood blockbuster F1 helped to make earlier this year — featuring personal struggles, a tense and, at times, difficult to understand dynamic at McLaren, as well as a Verstappen resurgence of legendary proportions.

It was a captivating season — one that ended Verstappen and Red Bull's run of four straight drivers' titles, the first for a McLaren driver since 2008. Here's a look at the highs and the lows in his championship campaign.

After winning their first constructors' championship of the millennium in 2024, McLaren came into this season confident they could challenge for both titles — before cars had even been officially unveiled ahead of the season, many bookies had Norris as the overwhelming favourite over teammate Piastri, who had also enjoyed a breakout 2024 featuring a first F1 race win.

Norris was coming into his seventh season, went the logic, while Piastri was stepping into a title-worthy car for his third. Winter testing only reinforced the view that McLaren was the team to beat and in Melbourne's season opener at the start of May the papaya-coloured cars underlined their advantage with a dominant front-row lockout — Norris outqualified Piastri by just 0.084s.

The race which followed was chaotic, with heavy rain and three safety cars, plus a trip across the gravel for both McLaren cars as they drove flat-out for the win. Norris managed to escape and keep the lead, holding