Lando Norris and McLaren CEO Zak Brown with the winner's trophies
Image: Keystone
With his victory at the season finale in Abu Dhabi, Lando Norris makes McLaren team world champion
Image: Keystone
The McLaren pit crew congratulates GP winner Lando Norris
Image: Keystone
The big papaya party in the Persian Gulf can begin
Image: Keystone
McLaren's managing director Zak Brown can't hold back
Image: Keystone
Lando Norris and McLaren CEO Zak Brown with the winner's trophies
Image: Keystone
With his victory at the season finale in Abu Dhabi, Lando Norris makes McLaren team world champion
Image: Keystone
The McLaren pit crew congratulates GP winner Lando Norris
Image: Keystone
The big papaya party in the Persian Gulf can begin
Image: Keystone
McLaren's managing director Zak Brown can't hold back
Image: Keystone
McLaren returns to the top of Formula 1 by winning the Constructors' Championship. After difficult years, the traditional English racing team achieves a renaissance with a young driver duo.
08.12.2024, 18:00
08.12.2024, 19:53
SDA
Howling with happiness, joy and pride, Lando Norris falls into the arms of his crew after his victory in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The mood in the McLaren camp is exuberant. The big papaya party can finally begin, after Norris has pulled the coal out of the fire on his own following the early, through no fault of his team-mate Oscar Piastri and reduced Ferrari to powerlessness.
The Scuderia had hoped for a miracle in the final 58 rounds of the 2024 season to close the 21-point gap to McLaren in the team standings. Second and third place finishes by Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc were ultimately not enough for Ferrari to celebrate a world championship title for the first time since 2008. Meanwhile, McLaren's ninth title in the teams' championship saw them draw level with British outfit Williams in the all-time leaderboard as number two behind Ferrari (16).
26 years after Häkkinen/Coulthard
McLaren's triumph in the Constructors' Championship brought an almost endless dry spell to an end. The last time the British racing team scored the most points in a Formula 1 season was in 2007. But there were no celebrations, quite the opposite. The reason was the "espionage affair". An unauthorized transfer of extensive data from Ferrari was McLaren's undoing. This resulted in a draconian penalty: a 100 million dollar fine and the loss of all points in the constructors' championship. Ferrari inherited the world championship title.
In fact, McLaren had not won the team championship since 1998. The drivers back then were Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard. The traditional racing team experienced its most successful period from the mid-1980s to the turn of the millennium. Nine of the twelve world championship titles for drivers and seven of the nine world championship titles for the teams to date come from this period.
Lewis Hamilton was the last driver to become world champion in a McLaren in 2008. While this was just the beginning for the now seven-time champion, the team from Woking in the English county of Surrey began its gradual decline in the Formula 1 hierarchy. This was followed by by far the longest period without a win in the team's 60-year history.
Step by step back to the top
The coronavirus pandemic presented McLaren with existential financial problems in 2020. However, the sporting downturn was overcome. In 2021, Australian Daniel Ricciardo finished first in a McLaren at the Italian Grand Prix for the first time in nine years.
Since then, the team has worked its way forward step by step under the leadership of Managing Director Zak Brown and Team Principal Andrea Stella. The engineers knew how to get the orange cars back on track. Last year's haul of nine podium finishes (without a win) was significantly improved again this season with 21 top-three finishes.
With Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, McLaren is relying on a young driver duo. The 25-year-old Englishman and the Australian, who is two years younger, have each won three Grands Prix this season - their first in the premier class. Only defending champion Max Verstappen (9 wins this season) was out of reach and prevented the first drivers' title for McLaren in 16 years.
2025 promises excitement
The victory in the team standings is something like the provisional crowning glory of the ascent from the bottom of the rankings. But McLaren wants more. If the team can maintain the high level of the second half of the 2025 season throughout the year, it should be no easy task for Verstappen and Red Bull to add a fifth world championship title in the drivers' standings.
The fact that seven drivers from four different teams have managed to win at least two Grands Prix this year is not only historic. It also shows that excitement has returned to Formula 1 after many years of monotony. Things could continue in the same vein in 2025. The next season kicks off in Melbourne in 98 days' time.
