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McLaren won the constructors’ championship and Lando Norris clinched the drivers’ title – but an unusually long time passed between the two events.
The constructors’ title fight was over as early as the beginning of October. It took another six rounds – until the final event of the season – for Norris to seize the drivers’ title.
Never in F1 history have the two titles been won so far apart. As recently as 2016 the constructors’ title was won four rounds before the drivers’, but half-a-dozen events was a new high benchmark. It is all the more remarkable considering three of those rounds were sprint events, so the total points available over this time was almost as much as seven regular grands prix.
While McLaren dominated the constructors’ title fight, their drivers fought a battle which went down to the final race. A similar scenario played out on each of the four past occasions when the drivers’ title was won four rounds after the constructors’. Those involved Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, also at McLaren, in 1988 and 1989, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve at Williams in 1996 and Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at Mercedes in 2016.
The difference this year, of course, was that there was a third man in the title fight: Max Verstappen, who came within two points of denying Norris the crown.
Norris won the drivers’ title 63 days after McLaren took the teams’ title. The same gap occured in 1996; however there was one occasion where an even longer spell passed between the two title-deciders.
The second constructors’ championship, awarded in 1959, was won by Cooper at the Italian Grand Prix. But Jack Brabham didn’t clinch the drivers’ title for another 90 days. Remarkably, these were consecutive rounds: the season-ending United States Grand Prix took place at Sebring on December 12th.
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Norris clinched his title by a mere two points: not the smallest absolute margin but the narrowest in relative terms. Facing such a high-quality field, the three drivers behind him all achieved record scores for their finishing positions: Verstappen for second place (421 points), Oscar Piastri for third (410) and George Russell for fourth (319).
For the first time since 2007, two drivers led more laps than the champion: on that occasion it was Kimi Raikkonen. Peculiarly, the last time this happened before then was the fourth instance in consecutive seasons: Niki Lauda in 1984, Alain Prost in 1985 and 1986 and Nelson Piquet in 1987 all had the third-highest tallies of laps spent in the lead.
The 76th running of the world championship produced the 11th occasion on which at least three drivers remained in the hunt for the title until the final race. For the first time since Emerson Fittipaldi in 1974, the leading driver of the title-contending trio (quartet in 2010) claimed the crown.
Verstappen’s eight grand prix wins were the most of any driver, though he did not take the title. Only one other driver has won more races without claiming the championship: Hamilton in 2021, when he also won eight times but Verstappen claimed the championship, and in 2016, where he notched up 10 victories but lost the title to Rosberg.
He ended the season with a hat-trick of victories which boosted Red Bull to an all-time total of 130. They are just one shy of matching Mercedes’ total. McLaren surpassed a double century of grand prix victories this year, ending the season on 203, but Ferrari remain the leaders on 248. Their record of wins as an engine constructor looks vulnerable, however.
Three notable names bowed out at the end of 2025. Yuki Tsunoda departs with 111 starts to his name. He never started on the front row or finished on the podium but came within one place of each: qualifying third for the Brazilian Grand Prix last year and peaking with fourth place in the final race of his debut season at AlphaTauri (now Racing Bulls).
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The Sauber name has come and gone since it arrived on the grid in 1993 and has disappeared again as it transforms into Audi. Nico Hulkenberg gave them their 11th podium at Silverstone, 30 years since his compatriot Heinz-Harald Frentzen achieved their first at Monza. They had 17 further podium finishes during their spell as BMW Sauber, including a single victory for Robert Kubica in Montreal.
Finally, F1 said farewell to Renault, its fourth most successful engine builder in terms of race victories. They powered their factory team (on three separate occasions), Lotus, Williams, Benetton, Red Bull and finally Alpine to a combined total of 169 wins. The last – Alpine’s sole victory – came courtesy of Esteban Ocon in the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix. This was the only time in the V6 hybrid turbo era that Renault’s engines powered Renault’s works team to victory.
Fernando Alonso enjoyed his most successful days at the wheel of Renault’s F1 cars and will race on for at least one more season, increasing his record of 425 grand prix starts. He now has the second-longest run of consecutive starts without a grand prix win, a record only beaten by the still win-less – but no longer podium-less – Nico Hulkenberg. Will Aston Martin or Audi give either of them the means to change that next year?
Over to you
Have you spotted any more notable statistics on the 2025 season? Share them in the comments.
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