ROUND 24: 🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates
FORMULA 1 ETIHAD AIRWAYS ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX 2025
Circuit stats
- Circuit name: Yas Marina Circuit
- First Grand Prix: 2009
- Number of laps: 58
- Circuit Length: 5.281 km
- Race Distance: 306.183 km
- Lap record: 1:25.637 Max Verstappen (2021)
- 2024 winner: Lando Norris
Track Map
Felt like the perfect final race to represent the season, in many ways. It was tense, but also kinda boring. It was uncertain but also anticlimactic.
Congratulations to Norris. He was good enough to capitalise when he was in a car good enough to be champion. I have a hard time getting excited for the win when Max is showing there are levels to this, and honestly I don’t think Norris is even the second best driver on the grid. But F1 history is full of champions like that. Hell, the very first champion in F1 - Farina - won his title despite never finishing in front of his teammate in any race they both finished. And recently we’ve had the likes of Button and Rosberg.
I’m happy we got an actual title fight, and I’m happy we got to have some tension over the past few months. Incredible comeback from Red Bull, and absolutely insane driving by Max to make it this close.
It’s been a crazy year with how tight the field has been in laptimes, which hasn’t really meant too much great racing but qualy has been a consistent banger. And how fitting it was that the last qualy of the season was one of the tightest all season. Now with the new regs it will probably be a good long while until the field converges again. Get ready for some 2-4 second gaps again across the field.
That being said, I’m incredibly hyped for next season. I hope I’m not disappointed!
Just as crazy as the drivers, is Merc taking second in the constructors too. Just so many top 5 finishes racking up a steady haul of points.
George has been crazy consistent all year. Well, the past few years actually. He’s a very, very good driver. And Kimi showed enough promise too, despite ending on a bit of a low (too bad titanium dioxide is banned in Abu Dhabi!).
Yeah it is really incredible that after 24 races, the fights was at the end. I hope you continue your write up next year ! Really liked that!
Thanks! I know I’ve trailed off a little in the quality of the writeups over the past months, but I’ll try to pick up again last year and do better. I do enjoy writing to collect my thoughts after a race but I’m glad someone likes reading them too!