The moment Lando Norris crossed the finish line at the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, his life shifted in an instant. Yet the newly crowned world champion still followed a familiar script for celebrations: the donuts on Yas Marina’s pit straight, the cascades of fizz from the podium roses, and the endless rounds of media obligations. Norris, F1’s 35th world champion, didn’t seem bothered. As the early hours crept in, he left the Yas Marina paddock, having already sipped far more than an ordinary energy drink from his sponsor’s bottle for quite a while after the race, signaling that the real party could begin.
Norris made his way to the imposing W hotel that straddles the final sector of the Abu Dhabi track to celebrate with family, friends, and a host of entourage. Songs like “We Are the Champions” and “Sweet Caroline” soon filled the air. In conversation with reporters the next day, Norris said he’d pressed on partying until 6 a.m., followed by a less glamorous breakfast misstep at McDonald’s: a craving for Chicken McNuggets unmet by dawn’s menu, so he settled for a Sausage McMuffin. He joked that it was “the breakfast of champions? Certainly not,” and admitted the regret that followed. The day after, with a pounding head, he managed a slate of interviews before returning to the wheel for a tire test in his MCL39—proof that modern F1 seasons often end with more track time, not less.
Celebrations across F1’s 75-year tapestry have unfolded in countless venues. The world champion is formally crowned at the FIA prize-giving gala, which Norris attended in Uzbekistan on the preceding Friday. The stories of how drivers celebrate their first world title reveal the intense pressure that lies beneath the sport’s polished veneer, and they also show what happens when that pressure finally lifts.
Norris’ late-night spree and nugget-nixed morning meal become quirky footnotes in his title story. By contrast, historical champions have celebrated with far less restraint— televisions hurled, forklifts joyfully hoisted, and team bosses clashing with party bouncers at victory parties.
Beer, brawls, and forklift joys
Norris’ 2025 triumph evokes memories of James Hunt’s 1976 title, though the races themselves diverged in temperament. The 2025 showdown featured a different kind of drama, yet Norris shares Hunt’s famously relaxed demeanor and a shared history with fierce rivals who live for speed. For Hunt, Niki Lauda represented the ultimate rival—while for Norris, Max Verstappen stood in that role in 2025.
Hunt clinched the 1976 title at the Japanese Grand Prix, a race whose outcome felt uncertain until the finish. Pit-to-pit communication back then lacked the constant streams of data and radio that teams rely on today, so the moment Hunt crossed the line, he initially believed he hadn’t won. He later recalled the confusion of a shifting sense of victory as the crowd’s cheers finally registered. After the confirmation, Hunt’s celebratory style earned him a reputation for a fondness for beer, a detail noted by Autosport’s Eoin Young.
In those celebrations, Hunt’s team flew home via Tokyo with a refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska. Young described Hunt as the kind of driver who exuded a relaxed happiness after a grueling season, letting the tension melt away in the glow of triumph.
That shared nerve—the balance between triumph and the lingering strain of a long season—links Norris to other titans, including Michael Schumacher. Andrea Stella, McLaren’s team principal in the aftermath of Norris’ victory, drew a parallel to Schumacher, invoking the German great’s 2003 season as a frame of reference. In 2003, Schumacher’s title was clinched despite a tense final stretch, and the Schumacher brothers became symbols of exuberant celebrations, even if at times chaotic.
Schumacher’s late-2000s celebrations became the stuff of legend: a spirited night that included a series of impromptu escapades, from a televised moment of shopping sprees for energy to party antics near the paddock and even the occasional rowdy incident. The episodes were widely reported, and Ferrari chose not to discipline Schumacher for that rowdy period.
In 2010, Adrian Newey’s Red Bull team claimed both the constructors’ and drivers’ titles, with Sebastian Vettel securing the drivers’ crown. The celebrations, as described by Newey in his later autobiography, included late-night parties at a country house near São Paulo, where the team stumbled through entrances and into celebrations in backdoor fashion, only to be blocked by security before finally breaking in. Similar scenes recurred the following year after Vettel clinched the title in Abu Dhabi.
From then on, the era of the Mercedes-dominated years—2014 through 2020—saw Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg share drivers’ titles, with Mercedes also stacking constructors’ titles into 2021. The annual Abu Dhabi hotel party became a tradition for the team, a ritual designed to cap off a season with a controlled, sanitized celebration that kept cameras at bay. Toto Wolff, Mercedes’ team principal, has spoken about those moments with a blend of nostalgia and humor, noting how the team occasionally chose early flights to avoid the stresses of late-night revelry. The occasional slip, like Wolff being photographed crowd-surfing after a title loss in 2021, reminded fans that even the most controlled celebrations can reveal human moments.
Over the years, Abu Dhabi hosted the climactic moments of several title deciders. Hamilton’s championship wins occurred in Austin, Mexico, and Turkey, while Verstappen sealed his 2021 title with a trip to Suzuka, Qatar, and Las Vegas in 2024. Verstappen’s party began with a beer at a post-race press conference and continued into the streets of Las Vegas, where a morning-after picture of him still celebrating surfaced as teammates and competitors woke to the dawn.
In 2024, Red Bull could not mirror Verstappen’s earlier celebrations with a constructors’ title triumph due to McLaren’s rise to the top. The season’s conclusion in Abu Dhabi saw Norris win the race ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, granting McLaren a 14-point margin over Ferrari in the constructors’ standings. The night’s mood shifted from the desert to a ceremonial glow as the Bahrain royal family, who own McLaren through their sovereign wealth fund, arranged for the team to celebrate in style. Piastri’s engineers noted the night’s extravagance, including a light show of papaya-orange bulbs in Bahrain and a mobile network named in honor of the McLaren F1 champions.
The celebrations in Bahrain’s royal palace followed a dramatic night in Abu Dhabi, but this year, Norris’ victory did not trigger the overnight Bahrain flight. Instead, simple, joyful celebrations—music, laughter, and a quest for chicken nuggets—took center stage in Abu Dhabi.
