F1 News: Norris wins Abu Dhabi GP, McLaren win Constructors title

By winning the 2024 Abu Dhabi GP, Lando Norris locked up McLaren’s first F1 Constructors’ Championship since 1998. The Ferraris of Sainz and Leclerc completed the podium positions, but it was not enough.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Polesitter Norris led from lights-to-flag and kept the Ferrari of Sainz Jr. at arms length the entire 58 laps around the Yas Marina Circuit.

Sainz Jr. was over 5.8 seconds at the finish, while his teammate Leclerc was over 31 seconds behind after starting way down in 19th.

It’s Norris’ fourth win of the year, and that 25 point reward was enough for McLaren. Norris is clear though, he’s coming for the drivers’ title next year.

As for Ferrari, a double podium is just reward, they gave it a good go and made it tight, but just came up short.

Lewis Hamilton was 4th for Mercedes in his final race for Mercedes, 36 seconds behind Norris, while his teammate George Russell rounded out the top-5 after being passed by Hamilton on the final lap with better (medium) tires.

Max Verstappen, who made contact with McLaren driver Oscar Piastri in Turn 1 at the start, spun and received at 10-second penalty for his dastardly deed, recovered to finish 6th in his Red Bull, but was never in contention, 50-seconds behind Norris.

Pierre Gasly was 7th for Alpine, with Nico Hülkenberg, Fernando Alonso and Oscar Piastri rounding out the top-10.

Kevin Magnussen got for fastest lap on soft tires at the end, with a lap of 1m25.637s, but no bonus point because he finished outside the top-10.

As the night sky lighted up with a colorful array of fireworks, on the main straight Hamilton was doing donuts to the delight of the crowd in a final Mercedes goodbye.

That was quite some race – collisions, retirements, penalties galore.

Interestingly though, the front four teams were all in the mix, Verstappen quite possibly quicker than he could show due to the time penalty he received for colliding with Piastri at the start as he just stroked it to the finish in 6th.

And that bodes very, very well for next year, the last year of the current regulations, so very much a continuation of the current spec cars. It should be a barnstormer.

Alex Albon’s Williams was 11th, ahead of the RB of Yuki Tsunoda in P12, while Zhou Guanyu ended his last race for Kick Sauber in P13 ahead of the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll in P14. Jack Doohan’s debut for Alpine, meanwhile, ended with a P15 result ahead of his first full season in the sport next year.

Kevin Magnussen was the final classified runner for Haas in 16th, perhaps not the ending that the Dane was hoping for in his last outing for the squad, while Liam Lawson’s season came to a dramatic end after he was forced to pull his smoking RB off the track in the last laps.

Valtteri Bottas’s chapter with Kick Sauber ended prematurely, having retired the car earlier in the race following a puncture. There was also a similar finish to Colapinto’s stint with Williams, which came to a close on Lap 26.

The last place finisher was Sergio Perez, who suffered a Lap 1 spin following contact with Bottas and dropped out amid continued speculation over whether he will return next season.

Top-3 Quotes

1st Lando Norris

“It feels incredible, not to myself but the whole team. I’m so proud of everyone. To end the season like this is perfect. We have to celebrate, this is an historic moment for the team. It’s going to be a good night.

“It’s my goal, we want to win the drivers’ next year.”

2nd Carlos Sainz Jr.

“A bittersweet feeling in the end. P2 was the maximum we could do, given the pace of Lando in the McLaren. Congratulations to McLaren, they deserve this championship, they have been rock solid in the last two-thirds of the season.

“It’s been a tough year, but a year we can be proud of. Emotional in-lap, at the same time very grateful to have been part of this amazing team for four years. I won races, pole positions, podiums. I proved to everyone, I can fight for wins in the right car.”

3rd Charles Leclerc

“I knew I had to be very aggressive, I knew I had to take all the risks. This was achieved, but we just started too far back. I think we’ve done the maximum, but this hurts. It was a hard hit on Friday, knowing we had the penalty.

“The first part of the year we were nowhere, the second part of the season was incredible. We ended strong, and next year hopefully we’ll start as strong as we ended.”

2024 Abu Dhabi GP Results – 58 Laps