2025. 76th Formula 1 world championship. We experienced incredible finals, crazy races, crazy scenarios of the kind that no playwright would have dared to imagine.
We have seen championships decided at the last corner of the last lap of the last Grand Prix (2008). We have seen incomprehensible strategies ruin an entire season in a second (2010, Ferrari). We have experienced world titles decided by half a point (1984). We were wide-eyed, too, at the moment when a misguided race director offered the title to one and dispossessed the other, who was nevertheless a few kilometers from winning (2021).
Don’t miss the crucial moment
It is for these emotions, these madness, these incredible gestures that we love Formula 1, that we cannot afford to miss a single lap or risk missing the crucial moment of a race.
On Sunday, in Abu Dhabi, there will be three of them trying to win the 2025 world title. On paper, Lando Norris, at the wheel of the best car and credited with a 12-point lead in the standings, has the advantage of being able to let the others fight for victory. The Briton can be satisfied with finishing third, he will then be champion whatever happens.
Oscar Piastri, his teammate, is ranked third in the championship, 16 points behind. The Australian will start third on Sunday, his chances of winning remaining suspended on the improbable abandonment of his two rivals.
The best is Verstappen
Remains Max Verstappen. The flying Dutchman once again stole pole position from his opponents and will start at the head of this last Grand Prix. If he wins, he will just have to hope that Lando Norris does not finish in the top three and will then win his fifth consecutive world title – something only Michael Schumacher achieved, between 2000 and 2004.
It is therefore likely that Lando Norris will quietly finish second or third behind Max Verstappen and thus win the championship. This season, Max Verstappen will undoubtedly have been the best, but in F1, the best does not always win.
The coronation of Lando Norris appears to be the most likely outcome. Except that history in F1 has often shown that chance does not have this kind of probability.
