Lazy Thoughts on the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

In the build-up to this week, there was a lot of chatter about how the race would go. And how could there not be? It was the first time in 15 years that there were more than two World Drivers’ Championship contenders by the last race of the season. Many recounted the 2010 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which featured four title contenders, including two former WDCs. A 23-year-old Sebastian Vettel won that race and the title after starting the weekend third in the standings, becoming both the youngest World Drivers’ Champion and the first to win it without ever leading the championship. Others looked back at the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix, when then-rookie Lewis Hamilton was facing off against Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen for the crown… only for a scruffy opening stint and gearbox gremlins to drag him out of contention. Räikkönen won both the race and the title by a single point.

I looked back at the 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix instead. Sure, it wasn’t as exciting as 2007 or 2010, with only two championship contenders by the end. But the races leading into that seemed to match what happened this year. In 2016, you had incumbent WDC Lewis Hamilton trying to drag the title back from teammate Nico Rosberg, who held a 33-point lead by the last four races of the season. And despite winning all four, Lewis’ points deficit was too large. Nico banked enough safe P2 results to win the championship by five points.

2016 has repeated itself this year. Back in August, Max Verstappen was 104 points behind then-WDC leader Oscar Piastri, and 70 points behind eventual champion Lando Norris. But then, the RB21 woke up. He went on a tear, picking off wins and podiums from Monza to Qatar. And in Abu Dhabi, the gap between him and the championship lead was just 12 points. All Max needed was a win and for Lando not to finish on the podium.

Alas, that podium finish happened. Max put up a mighty good fight on Yas Marina, securing a controlled pole-to-checkered flag win without any drama, even managing an almost 13-second lead by the time he passed the finish line.

The problem was that “no drama” helped Lando more than it helped hMax. Unlike the past couple of races, there were no spin-outs or safety cars, no disqualifications or disciplinary measures. Hell, the race would have been a write-off were it not for the three-way championship fight. The RB21 and the driver did exactly what they needed to do. The math just wasn’t in their favor.

But it’s not all doom and gloom for the Dutchman. Again, while he might not have won the WDC. He won Abu Dhabi; he walks away from that with the most race wins this season at eight. He was only two points behind Lando in the standings. So while he doesn’t get to add a fifth title into his Wikipedia infobox, he does get a reminder that even in a “lost” year, he was still the one they had to beat on Sundays. He leaves Yas Marina without the big trophy, but he is not going home empty-handed.

If Max’s race was simple, Lando’s and Oscar’s were about making sure what happened in Las Vegas and Qatar did not repeat itself. After a joint disqualification for both and a flawed pit stop strategy cost Lando a podium, the papaya team was in full damage-control mode. They couldn’t risk any creative tire strategies, late safety car gambles, or anything that could risk either driver not winning the WDC.

So, they did the most un-McLaren thing in months: pick the boring options and stick to them. Simple pit stops timed as safely as possible, no attempts to stretch a stint unless necessary, and absolutely NO “let’s offset and see what happens” experiments. It made sense. Yas Marina is a circuit where earning pole position gives you a nearly guaranteed win, and with Max in pole and the McLaren drivers behind him, the job description for Oscar and Lando was to maintain position. It was a simple task of covering undercut windows and managing those rear tire temperatures, and both Oscar and Lando delivered.

Let’s take a moment now to talk specifically about the race of our new world champion. Lando’s entire evening was built on one non-negotiable: finish on the podium and keep the car out of trouble. From lights out, he drove like a man who understood that Yas Marina rewards discipline more than bravado. No desperate lunges on Max, no ego duels with Oscar, and no theatrics. Lando drove inside a tight band of pace: enough to stay ahead of challengers, but never hard enough to invite slide-outs or tire fall-off.

Whether you think he deserved the championship or not, there’s no denying that Lando drove exactly the race he needed when it counted. He knew he had to finish on the podium to win the championship, and he treated third place like it was made of glass. He didn’t even really fight for a race win, but that wasn’t the point. He wasn’t trying to prove he could beat Max on Yas Marina (after all, he already did that last year). It was about proving he could carry a title lead across 58 laps without dropping it. After Vegas and Qatar, the only irresponsible thing left for Lando to do was chase aesthetics over arithmetic. He chose arithmetic. And according to McLaren CEO Zak Brown, “everything went right” for him.

You can argue about who “deserves” the WDC all you like, tallying up DNFs and penalties and blunders until your calculator overheats. In the end, though, we got one last spotless win from Max, one calm podium from Lando, and a points table that refused to bend to anyone’s feelings about it. Sometimes a season ends with a storybook twist and a miracle dive bomb. This one did not.

Sure, it’s not the ending some people wanted, but if you were on the #MaxVer5tappen side of the aisle, all you can really do now is replay the run from Monza to Abu Dhabi and admit it was a hell of a ride while it lasted.

It certainly was that way for me.

And now, for the last time this year, my other thoughts about the race that didn’t make it to the main piece:

One last thing before I go: thank you all so much for following this little race recap series of mine. I started it by accident, really. It became an excuse to talk extensively about the races, and I wasn’t expecting anyone outside of my regular following to read or enjoy it.

And then someone who actually does F1 journalism for a living recommended the second-ever Lazy Thoughts recap (the Austria recap) to his reader base. Getting that kind of feedback early on was surreal. It made me realize that this might not just be me screaming into the void after a race weekend. Maybe there was space for long-form, slightly unhinged, narrative-driven F1 commentary written by some random American in her mid-20s who still doesn’t quite know how to convert miles into kilometers.

So genuinely, thank you. Thank you for reading, for indulging in my tangents, for surviving the mid-season whiplash with me, for the messages and comments about how you look forward to these recaps every race week, for everything. THANK YOU. This has been one of the most unexpectedly fun things I’ve done all year, and I can’t wait to get it back up and running next season.

In the meantime, you’ll still hear from me. I’ll probably talk about the new car/livery reveals as they come. I’ll probably take a closer look at the regulation changes and try to predict how they’ll change racing in practice. I also have a couple of future articles and surprises already planned— but you’ll have to wait and see what they are.

But for now, I’m going to open this bottle of cheap champagne I bought at the discount supermarket yesterday and celebrate the season 1 finale of Lazy Thoughts.

That’s all for now, my loves. See you in March 2026 for the start of the next season.

Love always,

Flower