Norris needed only to be in the top three at the Yas Marina Circuit to become the 11th driver from Britain to take the crown, and he duly obliged with an impressive drive \u2013 which even saw him face a stewards\u2019 investigation for driving off the road when he passed Max Verstappen\u2019s Red Bull team-mate Yuki Tsunoda.<\/p>\n
Norris escaped punishment and even though Max Verstappen won the race from pole position \u2013 to end the season with more victories than anyone else \u2013 it was not enough to derail his McLaren rival\u2019s championship charge.<\/p>\n
Verstappen crossed the line 12.5 seconds clear of runner-up Oscar Piastri \u2013 the Dutch driver resisting the urge to resort to dark arts by backing up the pack and hoping Norris\u2019 third place would come under threat \u2013 with Norris 3.9 seconds behind his McLaren team-mate and 6.7 seconds clear of fourth-placed Charles Leclerc.<\/p>\n
Norris, 26, was not fazed by Verstappen\u2019s aggressive start when the Red Bull pole-sitter angled his car to his immediate left to chop across his rival.<\/p>\n
Verstappen led but Norris remained in second with Piastri in third. However, Norris lost a place on the opening lap after a fired-up Piastri swooped round the outside of his team-mate at the ninth corner.<\/p>\n
Verstappen led from Piastri and Norris before the Englishman changed tyres on lap 16.<\/p>\n
Norris left the pits in ninth, and cleared Kimi Antonelli for eighth and then Carlos Sainz for seventh on lap 18. Up next for the championship contender was Lance Stroll and Liam Lawson and an aggressive Norris took both of them on in one swoop into Turn 5. Lawson bit back but Norris held firm.<\/p>\n
Then the toughest task of them all with Tsunoda was deployed by Red Bull to knock Norris off his stride.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll you can do when he catches,\u201d was the message to Verstappen\u2019s team-mate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know what to do so leave to me,\u201d Tsunoda replied.<\/p>\n
It drew comparisons with the contentious 2021 decider when Sergio Perez was hailed as Mexico\u2019s Minister of Defence after he successfully kept Verstappen\u2019s rival Lewis Hamilton behind for a number of laps.<\/p>\n
On to lap 23 here, and the pivotal moment of the race, and indeed Norris\u2019 championship charge.<\/p>\n
Norris was in a rush and with his first opportunity on the 190mph drag to Turn 5, he went for it.<\/p>\n
Tsunoda weaved one way and then the other and then back again before Norris launched his McLaren underneath the Red Bull as they approached the left-hander.<\/p>\n
Norris came within inches of the Red Bull, and the nearside barrier too, and orange sparks flew, but he survived to take the place only for the stewards to investigate the heart-stopping incident.<\/p>\n
All four of Norris\u2019 McLaren wheels were over the painted white lines and the stewards had to determine whether the Briton had left the track and gained an advantage.<\/p>\n
Tsunoda was also in the spotlight for forcing another driver off the track. Six laps passed and then the crucial verdict arrived.<\/p>\n
Sighs of relief at McLaren as Norris was off the hook, and it was Tsunoda who was adjudged to have broken the rules. A five-second penalty followed for the Red Bull man and no further action for Norris.<\/p>\n
Norris was now running in third, and in clean air, and doing all he needed to secure the crown.<\/p>\n
Leclerc stopped for new tyres on lap 39, and Norris covered him off by pitting again the next time around.<\/p>\n
Up front and Verstappen cleared Piastri for the lead with 19 laps to go and the Australian \u2013 who began the race on the longer-lasting hard tyre compound \u2013 immediately pulled in for his opening stop.<\/p>\n
Verstappen led from Piastri by 22 seconds, with Norris five seconds back from his team-mate, and Leclerc another five seconds adrift. Leclerc was now the only man who could stop Norris.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs Charles catching him or not?\u201d an agonised Verstappen asked. \u201cFairly equal pace,\u201d was the response that Verstappen did not want to hear, and Norris was crowned world champion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Norris needed only to be in the top three at the Yas Marina Circuit to become the 11th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,898,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-179526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-latest-news-ticker","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}