For the first time since 1998, McLaren has secured the constructors’ championship, outlasting a late-season surge from Ferrari.
Lando Norris led the race from start to finish, converting pole position to winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Pressure sat on his shoulders throughout the entire race after Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri collided on the first lap, and the Australian later hit Franco Colapinto, collecting a 10-second penalty. Piastri ultimately finished P10.
With Piastri largely out of the picture, Ferrari needed a 1-3 finish. But the duo of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc ended their day second and third, closing the chapter on their partnership with a double podium finish. Sainz will join Williams this week, hopping into the blue car for post-season testing, and Lewis Hamilton will join the Maranello-based crew in 2025. The seven-time world champion ended his time with Mercedes with a fourth-place finish, sticking a late pass on teammate George Russell.
A yellow flag did emerge as smoke came from Liam Lawson’s car on the final laps, but with it out of the way, the race finished under normal conditions.
The historical significance
In 1998, Britney Spears released “…Baby One More Time,” the last episode of Seinfeld aired, the Green Bay Packers beat the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXXII, and France beat Brazil in the World Cup. Oh, and McLaren’s Mika Häkkinen won his first F1 world championship and Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher finished second.
The two constructors, which are the sport’s longest-established teams, have produced some epic rivalries over the years, like James Hunt and Niki Lauda during the 1970s and Häkkinen and Schumacher in the late 1990s/early 2000s.
It’s been 50 years since McLaren won its first constructors’ championship, thanks to Emerson Fittipaldi (who won the drivers’ championship) and Denny Hulme. Bruce McLaren died in 1970, and Teddy Mayer took over, helping lead the team to its first title in 1974. McLaren beat out Ferrari by eight points for the championship that year.
How we got here
Australia may have been a strong outing for the team, with the duo bringing home a combined 27 points, but in those early races this year, Red Bull looked poised to continue its 2023 dominance. With back-to-back 1-2 finishes from Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez, Red Bull led the standings with 87 points after Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
Starting in China, McLaren began consistently netting 20-plus point hauls, but Red Bull scored nearly twice as much in China (54) and Miami (44). Miami, though, was when tides felt like the championship may turn. Norris secured his first F1 win in May, the first of the team’s seven victories. And after that same race weekend, Red Bull never hit the 40-plus point hauls again. Pérez began struggling, and Verstappen went from winning seven out of the first 10 grands prix to a win drought that lasted from late June to early November.
The McLaren duo, though, frequently appeared on the podium. It was Piastri’s win in Azerbaijan that finally pushed the Woking-based team ahead of Red Bull, and that victory marked the team’s second in three races. It became the tale of two different teams: McLaren becoming the fastest car most weekends with two consistent drivers versus Red Bull that had one now-four-time world champion leading the team, the second driver struggling and a car with issues.
But a third team entered the mix. Ferrari looked fourth fastest after Belgium, but it began a steady push forward in the standings after the summer break, the significant step coming in Monza. A big upgrade package set it on the right path, but it didn’t necessarily make Ferrari the car to beat, though more Prancing Horse victories were on the horizon. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz secured a 1-2 finish in Austin, and the Spaniard snagged the win in Mexico, pushing Ferrari past Red Bull in the constructor standings.
Heading into the Qatar Grand Prix weekend, McLaren held a 24-point lead over Ferrari and needed to leave the race weekend with a 45-point lead to secure the title. Piastri and Norris’ 1-2 finish in the sprint race narrowed the gap, meaning the team needed to outscore Ferrari by just 15 points and not be outscored by Red Bull by 23 points or more. But it wasn’t able to.
A chaotic race unfolded as multiple safety car periods and collisions occurred and penalties were handed out, some of which were controversial like Norris’ 10-second stop-and-go penalty. In the end, Ferrari outscored McLaren, 26-17, on race day.
How the race unfolded
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix started chaotically.
Verstappen and Piastri collided at Turn 1, and the Dutchman received a 10-second time penalty. And further back, Valtteri Bottas and Pérez also collided, and the Sauber driver received the same penalty as Verstappen. Pérez had to retire soon after. And after those incidents, Piastri hit Colapinto after locking up and subsequently received a 10-second penalty.
The pressure fell on Norris’ shoulders to singlehandedly seal the win, leading from pole. Sainz sat 3.2 seconds behind him on lap 10, and Leclerc climbed to sixth from P19 in that span.
The race settled in, Norris putting together a mistake-free race and building the gap to Sainz up to four seconds or so by the time Leclerc pitted on lap 21, emerging P8. Between Norris and Sainz, the Ferrari driver is the first to pit, the team executing a 2.2-second stop on lap 26. But Norris bested that time a lap later, McLaren executing a two-second stop.
The gap between the McLaren driver and the Spaniard hovered at around two seconds. Norris needed to win for McLaren to secure the title.
On lap 31, the threat of a safety car arose when Valtteri Bottas collided with Kevin Magnussen. The Sauber driver’s car suffered damage, though, and was forced to retire. Racing continued ultimately, and Piastri dove into the pits to swap tires and serve his penalty on lap 33.
With less than 20 laps to go, it seemed that McLaren was mulling different strategy options for Norris. Race engineer Will Joseph asked over the radio if Norris felt he could pass Sainz if McLaren pitted him and the Ferrari driver stayed out. Norris reckoned so. That idea, though, never panned out. Norris stayed out, reporting he was struggling in dirty air from lapped cars. But he held a five-second lead over Sainz. On lap 55 out of 58, Leclerc asked about the gap between the top two, which sat at 7.5 seconds.
Ferrari could never catch up to McLaren.
For the last time in 2024, here is how the top 10 finished.
- Lando Norris
- Carlos Sainz
- Charles Leclerc
- Lewis Hamilton
- George Russell
- Max Verstappen
- Pierre Gasly
- Nico Hülkenberg
- Fernando Alonso
- Oscar Piastri
Top photo of Lando Norris: HAMAD I MOHAMMED/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
