Going into the final race—worth 25 points for a win—Norris was on 408, Verstappen on 396, and Piastri on 392 points. A podium finish was all Norris needed to seal the championship. If Verstappen won and Norris came fourth or worse, the Dutch driver would claim his fifth championship. Piastri, for a long time the title leader, had the hardest task of all—nothing less than a win, and some misfortune for the other two, would do.
At times, the orange cars have made their life harder than it needed to be.
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Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Qualifying went Verstappen’s way, with Norris a few hundredths of a second faster than Piasrtri for second and third. The Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and the Mercedes of George Russell could have complicated things by inserting themselves between our three protagonists but came up short.
The big day
Come race day, Verstappen made an OK start, defended his position, then got his head down and drove to the checkered flag. The Yas Marina circuit, which is reportedly the most expensive race track ever created, had some corners reprofiled in 2021 to improve the racing, so the kind of “slow your rival down and back them into the chasing pack” games that Lewis Hamilton tried to play with Nico Rosberg in 2016 no longer work.
Verstappen was pursued by Piastri, who saw a chance to pass Norris on lap 1 and took it. For his part, Norris let him go, then gave his team some cause for panic by letting Leclerc’s Ferrari close to within a second before showing more speed. An early pit stop meant Norris had to do some overtaking on track. Which he did decisively, a far cry from the more timid driver we saw at times earlier this year.
With eight wins this year, Verstappen has been in amazing form. Which makes Norris’ achievement even more impressive.
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Verstappen’s teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, was in one of the cars he needed to pass. Promoted from the junior Racing Bulls squad after just two races this season, Tsunoda has had the typically torrid time of Red Bull’s second driver, and Abu Dhabi was to be his last race for the team after scoring less than a tenth as many points as Verstappen. Tsunoda tried to hold up Norris and ran him to the far edge of the track but gained a five-second penalty for swerving in the process.
