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Motorsport

Sport

F1 Abu Dhabi GP: Norris victory wraps up McLaren constructors' title

Lando Norris McLaren Max Verstappen Carlos Sainz Oscar Piastri F1 Ferrari George Russell Mercedes Charles Leclerc

Lando Norris won the Formula 1 season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to secure McLaren’s first constructors’ championship since 1998, with Carlos Sainz second for Ferrari after Max Verstappen hit Oscar Piastri.

That incident aided Charles Leclerc’s run up from the final row of the grid to finish third in the other SF-14, which was not enough to aid the Scuderia as it ended up 14 points behind in the teams’ title battle.

In his final race for Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton beat his team-mate George Russell to fourth, with Verstappen ending up sixth after serving his penalty.

At the start, Norris easily led away from pole, with any concerns of intra-McLaren contact at the first corner wiped away – replaced by the drama of Verstappen’s dive on Piastri at Turn 1.

As Piastri came across with the Red Bull committed on the inside, they collided just past the apex as Verstappen understeered in the McLaren’s side and both spun – Verstappen falling deep into the pack and Piastri at the back.

That elevated Sainz to second – getting back the place he had lost to Verstappen off the line – with Norris clear in the lead.

His advantage at the end of lap one of 58 was 1.8s, which was preserved for the next lap and a third, as the virtual safety car was activated for Sergio Perez stopping on the run out of Turn 9 due to contact sustained in another lap one clash – this with Valtteri Bottas at Turn 6.

By the time the VSC ended, Verstappen and Bottas had been handed 10-second penalties for their clashes, with Norris then moving to increase his lead over Sainz to around three-seconds over laps four to nine.

Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38 and Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20 collide on the corner causing each other to spin (Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images)

They were soon in a two-horse race for the win as Pierre Gasly held up Russell to the tune of nearly 10s by the time the Alpine stopped on lap 14 – by which point Norris was nearly four seconds clear of Sainz.

They were able to lap in the low 1m29s and high 1m28s for Norris, with Russell unable to match their pace even when unleashed from behind Gasly.

While lots of cars pitted from the pack behind, the leaders stayed out for the next phase of the race, with Sainz finally coming in to switch the mediums all the frontrunners had started on for hards on lap 25.

He had just squeezed Norris’s lead back under four seconds and when the McLaren was called in to cover the next lap, the chase for the lead resumed with Sainz having gained two more seconds back.

Norris’s advantage then held at the two-second mark as they pounded around matching each other in the low 1m28s.

But by lap 34, the elastic-back to the Ferrari finally snapped, with Norris then able to quickly edge his lead back above three seconds, as he was able to hit the high 1m27s and Sainz could only do so intermittently.

On lap 41, Norris was back to 4.6s ahead and from there he continued stretching away – bar a phase as the final 10 laps kicked off when he lost a little bit of time lapping traffic.

But when Sainz hit this too, Norris was in the clear and he eventually eased home to win by 5.8s.

Leclerc finished 26 seconds behind his team-mate after making a series of bold moves on the opening lap around the various contacts, then charging up towards Russell’s attempt to overcut Gasly.

On lap 20, Leclerc stopped for his medium-hards switch and he quickly caught and passed Gasly and when Russell pitted for his sole service at the same time as Norris Leclerc was through into third.

Hamilton had started on the hards and stayed out until lap 34, rejoining in seventh and then rising – including getting by Fernando Alonso’s two-stopping Aston Martin – while erasing a 14s gap to Russell.

On the final lap, Hamilton attacked Russell with DRS into the outside of Turn 9 and claimed fourth on the exit, with Verstappen 12s behind the Silver Arrows pair after serving his penalty at his stop on lap 29.
Gasly ended up seventh ahead of Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg, which sealed Alpine’s sixth place in the constructors’ against the American squad.

Alonso took ninth as Piastri recovered to 10th after serving his own 10s penalty at his pitstop – for whacking Franco Colapinto’s rear at the VSC restart.

Colapinto was one of three retirements in addition to Perez, as the Williams driver’s F1 cameo ended due to an engine issue, which was what also appeared to eliminate Liam Lawson late on for RB.

Valtteri Bottas’s F1 career ended in disappointment as he also hit Kevin Magnussen at Turn 6 just past halfway – an incident that gave the Sauber too much damage to continue but from which the Haas was able to escape after a spin and Magnussen finished his own F1 career having made three stops.

The Dane secured the race’s fastest lap at 1m25.637s on the final tour.

F1 Abu Dhabi GP - Race results

1 - 2
Cla	Driver	#	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Pits	Points	Retirement	Chassis	Engine
1	L. Norris McLaren	4	58	-			1	25		McLaren	Mercedes
2	C. Sainz Ferrari	55	58	+5.832 5.832	5.832		1	18		Ferrari	Ferrari
3	C. Leclerc Ferrari	16	58	+31.928 31.928	26.096		1	15		Ferrari	Ferrari
4	L. Hamilton Mercedes	44	58	+36.483 36.483	4.555		1	12		Mercedes	Mercedes
5	G. Russell Mercedes	63	58	+37.538 37.538	1.055		1	10		Mercedes	Mercedes
6	M. Verstappen Red Bull Racing	1	58	+49.847 49.847	12.309		1	8		Red Bull	Red Bull
7	P. Gasly Alpine	10	58	+1'12.560 1'12.560	22.713		1	6		Alpine	Renault
8	N. Hulkenberg Haas F1 Team	27	58	+1'15.554 1'15.554	2.994		1	4		Haas	Ferrari
9	F. Alonso Aston Martin Racing	14	58	+1'22.373 1'22.373	6.819		2	2		Aston Martin	Mercedes
10	O. Piastri McLaren	81	58	+1'23.821 1'23.821	1.448		2	1		McLaren	Mercedes
11	A. Albon Williams	23	57	1 lap			1			Williams	Mercedes
12	Y. Tsunoda Racing Bulls	22	57	1 lap			1			RB	Red Bull
13	Z. Guanyu Sauber	24	57	1 lap			2			Sauber	Ferrari
14	L. Stroll Aston Martin Racing	18	57	1 lap			2			Aston Martin	Mercedes
15	J. Doohan Alpine	61	57	1 lap			1			Alpine	Renault
16	K. Magnussen Haas F1 Team	20	57	1 lap			4			Haas	Ferrari
dnf	L. Lawson Racing Bulls	30	55				3		Retirement	RB	Red Bull
dnf	V. Bottas Sauber	77	30				2		Collision	Sauber	Ferrari
dnf	F. Colapinto Williams	43	26				2		Power Unit	Williams	Mercedes
dnf	S. Perez Red Bull Racing	11	0						Collision	Red Bull	Red Bull
View full results