It all comes down to Abu Dhabi — again.
Four years after a controversial ending to the 2021 Formula One season saw Max Verstappen win his first championship over Lewis Hamilton — and cost the series’ race director his job — the championship battle will again come down to the final race at the Yas Marina Circuit.
This time, Verstappen seeks a fifth consecutive title, having won championships in 2022, 2023, and 2024 with relative ease. But the Red Bull Racing driver faces stiff competition from the McLaren drivers of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, in the first three-way battle in a series finale in nearly two decades.
Season’s Twists and Turns
It speaks to both the length and drama of this F1 season that some of the biggest stories of the 2025 campaign have, over time, faded into the background. Red Bull boss Christian Horner was sacked in July following poor team performance and a sexual harassment scandal that had played out in a very public way during the 2024 season. And Hamilton’s shock move from the Mercedes team to Ferrari, the racing equivalent of Derek Jeter deciding to suit up for the Boston Red Sox, ended up being a poor fit, with mediocre results leaving the seven-time champion struggling for answers.
The 2025 season proved long for the three championship contenders. While Norris won the opening grand prix in Australia, Piastri — thought at the season’s open to have less of a chance at the championship than teammate Norris — came back and won five of the next eight grands prix. Piastri maintained the championship lead from the Bahrain Grand Prix in April until Norris regained the lead following the Mexican Grand Prix on Oct. 26.
McLaren vs. Verstappen
But much of the season has been defined as a battle between, as broadcaster Martin Brundle has described it, the “best car” — the McLarens driven by Norris and Piastri — and the “best driver” in Verstappen. After Horner’s dismissal over the summer, Red Bull regained its performance during the season’s final stretch, giving Verstappen a fighting chance for his fifth consecutive title.
All but given up for dead in the championship when he faced a 104-point deficit — nearly four full races — following his home Grand Prix in the Netherlands on Aug. 30, Verstappen came roaring back to win five of the next eight races, including last week’s race in Qatar. Now second in the standings, Verstappen joked that McLaren can “call me Chucky,” after McLaren boss Zak Brown said Verstappen is “like that guy in a horror movie, that right as you think he’s not coming back, he’s back!”
But over the last two races, Brown and McLaren have done their best to gift the championship to Verstappen. At the Las Vegas Grand Prix before Thanksgiving, both Piastri and Norris were disqualified during post-race inspection because the undertrays of their cars were less than a hair’s width (literally) too thin. Had Piastri retained his points for a fourth-place finish, he would have been ahead of Verstappen in the championship standings; had Norris retained his second-place points, he would have already clinched the championship outright.
The Qatar Grand Prix last weekend saw McLaren hand over another win to Verstappen, when neither Piastri nor Norris pitted for fresh tires during an early safety car (i.e., caution) period. Verstappen and the rest of the field pitted and promptly caught back up to the two McLarens under the safety car. With Piastri and Norris having to make two stops to Verstappen’s one over the remainder of the race, neither could run fast enough to overtake him. Verstappen won going away, with Piastri second and Norris settling for fourth.
Going into the Abu Dhabi race, Norris still retains the championship lead by 12 points (with a maximum 25 for a win), meaning he controls his own fate. A finish among the top three places would guarantee the championship regardless of what Verstappen and Piastri do. But with McLaren having choked away the past two races, and Verstappen (aka “Chucky”) getting into the team’s head, McLaren will have to up its performance to see Norris or Piastri win their first championship.
‘Lights Out’ for Broadcast Television
Sunday’s race also marks not just the culmination of a compelling three-way title fight but the end of an era in Formula One broadcasting. Beginning next year, races will move from the ESPN family of networks to Apple TV, which produced this year’s F1 movie and acquired the American broadcast rights to Formula One races for the next five years.
The move echoes those by the NFL and other sports leagues to branch out into online streaming, as streaming companies attempt to leverage “must-see” live sporting events to boost their subscriber numbers. Time will tell if the American broadcast audience that Formula One had built up in recent years will migrate to a streaming service. But the fact that F1 could command lucrative rights fees from a streaming service demonstrates a popularity that the sport lacked just a few short years ago.
Ironically, the streaming series Drive to Survive, produced by Apple competitor Netflix, helped kick-start the recent interest in Formula One among American audiences. The nail-biting and controversial finish to the 2021 title fight between Hamilton and Verstappen helped add to the interest. No doubt the series hopes the three-way battle this weekend in Abu Dhabi will help build interest for next season, with a brand-new series of design regulations for series racecars and a new American broadcast partner starting another chapter for the sport.
