Five of the best F1 last race title fights

By : AFP

Date: 4 December 2025 7:38am WAT

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The Formula One season comes to a gripping climax on Sunday with a three-way title fight in Abu Dhabi.

Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri will scrap it out for the 2025 world drivers’ crown in a fitting conclusion to F1’s 75th anniversary season. AFP Sport sets the scene by taking a look at five previous memorable last race showdowns.

2021

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton lined up for the season-closer in Abu Dhabi incredibly neck and neck on points. Late in the race Hamilton held the upper hand, with then Red Bull boss Christian Horner suggesting Verstappen needed “a miracle”. They got it when Nicholas Latifi crashed his Williams. Verstappen pitted for soft tyres under the safety car, denying Hamilton a record eighth world crown on a nerve-tingling last lap shoot-out. Mercedes mounted a furious appeal over the controversial handling of the restart but the result stood, with Hamilton boycotting the end-of-year awards ceremony in protest.

2010

Abu Dhabi was once again the backdrop as four drivers took to the grid with a shot at the title. Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso held an eight-point lead over Red Bull’s Mark Webber, with Sebastian Vettel in the other Red Bull 15 points back, and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton 24 points off Alonso. Vettel won from pole to become only the third driver in F1 history to lead the championship after the last race. The title was heading Alonso’s way though only for a Ferrari pit-stop strategy blunder to leave him stranded behind Renault’s Vitaly Petrov in seventh.

2007 After a stunning rookie season Hamilton approached the championship decider in Brazil leading the standings with 107 points from his McLaren teammate Alonso on 103 and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen on 100 – with 10 points for a win on offer. A disastrous start from second – he was stuck in second gear for half a minute – dropped Hamilton to the back of the field. He fought back to seventh but needed to be fifth to secure his maiden title, which went to Raikkonen by one point from the McLaren pair. One year later Hamilton gained sweet revenge, overtaking Timo Glock on the final corner to nab fifth and deprive home hero and race winner Felipe Massa the crown.

1994

A rancorous season that claimed the lives of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger in a horror 24 hours at Imola was settled in unsavoury circumstances in the Adelaide finale. Williams’ Damon Hill trailed Michael Schumacher by one point. On lap 36 Schumacher’s Benetton slithered off to hit a wall, but the German, spying Hill coming to overtake, swerved back onto the circuit, hitting Hill’s car. With both drivers out of the race the title was Schumacher’s after what has been called his ‘professional foul’ on the Briton. Years later Hill reflected: “What I hadn’t factored in and still had to learn about was Michael wasn’t very good at letting people past. So it ended with a crash. Because of the season we’d had there wasn’t an appetite to appeal, everyone wanted to get the season over and move on.”

1976

Niki Lauda and James Hunt’s monumental tussle for the title – immortalised in the film ‘Rush’ – came to the boil in treacherous weather in Japan. Ferrari’s Lauda, miraculously still racing after suffering near-fatal injuries in a crash at the Nurburgring, led the debonair Briton by three points. But the Austrian pulled out of the race on lap two, deeming the conditions too dangerous. An inspired drive lifted Hunt into third to take the title. “I wanted to win the championship and I felt I deserved it. But I also felt Niki deserved to win the championship, and I just wish we could have shared it,” the McLaren driver told media afterwards.

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