Lando Norris was not penalized for overtaking Yuki Tsunoda in Formula One’s Abu Dhabi season finale because the race stewards determined the 2025 world champion had no choice but to leave the track because of the Red Bull driver’s aggressive defense.
Norris had caught Tsunoda early in his second stint of the race, which ultimately was won by Max Verstappen. The second Red Bull car had yet to pit at this stage, after starting on hard tires — a strategy that would nearly guarantee Norris would drop behind when he eventually pitted to exchange his less durable medium tires.
On Lap 23 of 58, Norris used his fresher hard tires to get close enough to Tsunoda on the Yas Marina circuit’s long back straight and get into position to attempt an overtake. But as the McLaren closed on the Red Bull, Tsunoda weaved three times across the track.
At the third weave, Norris’ overspeed with the DRS overtaking aid activated meant he had to go one side of his rival or the other, and he moved to the track’s inside line. Tsunoda then edged even further to his left, and Norris jinked too in reaction — briefly going across the white line at the track’s edge with all four wheels.
When drivers complete passing maneuvers beyond a track’s white edge-defining lines, they are sometimes penalized or must hand the position back for gaining an advantage by driving beyond the track limit.
But the FIA’s race control officials quickly flagged both drivers’ driving to the Abu Dhabi stewards’ panel for consideration. These officials then decided that Tsunoda’s actions had caused Norris to leave the track, and that this was all that ultimately mattered.
Here’s a replay of Norris overtaking Tsunoda 👀#F1 #AbuDhabiGP pic.twitter.com/qi6NGBEECg
— Formula 1 (@F1) December 7, 2025
There is an offense in F1’s sporting rules called “forcing a driver off the track”, but in the end, it was Tsunoda’s weaving that the stewards took issue with. This is because drivers are only permitted to change their racing line once in defense against an overtaking rival. This is under Appendix L, Chapter IV, Article 2 b) of the FIA’s International Sporting Code.
The stewards, via an official FIA bulletin, said Tsunoda “made a number of changes of direction which ultimately resulted in Car 4 (Norris) having to go off track to avoid a collision. In doing so, Car 22 (Tsunoda) also effectively forced Car 4 off the track.”
When clearing Norris, the stewards said that although the McLaren driver did complete his overtake off the track, “this occurred because the driver of Car 22 made multiple moves defending his position against Car 4. Had Car 22 not made those moves, Car 4 would have overtaken it without going off track, but moved off track to avoid contact with Car 22.”
Tsunoda’s defense was the most controversial element of a race where Verstappen needed Norris, his main title rival, to fall further down the order than the third place that ultimately clinched Norris his first F1 championship.
At the time of the incident, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was chasing Norris hard, and the five or 10-second penalties drivers can get if they are found to have left the track and gained an advantage could have ended up being pivotal to the world title story.
This mattered because Leclerc finished just 6.7 seconds behind Norris. The penalty is either five or 10 seconds, depending on whether mitigating circumstances are involved.
When the incident with Tsunoda occurred, Norris’ race engineer Will Joseph called it “classic Red Bull s–housery.” There had been much discussion ahead of the race about whether Verstappen and Red Bull would need to adopt very different tactics, beyond simply completing the fastest race possible to win. They needed to shuffle Norris down the order – Verstappen could only be champion if he won and Norris finished fourth or worse.
In the end, Verstappen was in a straight fight for victory against the other title contender, Oscar Piastri.
Tsunoda’s defense raised comparisons with how former Red Bull driver Sergio Pérez drove during the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP to help Verstappen against Lewis Hamilton. This time, it ultimately made no difference to the result. It was the same case with Pérez’s actions in F1’s infamous season finale at the same track four years ago.
Speaking to reporters after the race, Tsunoda said: “We talked about it (trying to hold Norris up to aid Verstappen). I tried my best to defend as much as possible to him. There were not any benefits for letting him go easily. So that’s it. I did try my best, but he just came very quick and overtook me.”
Norris said he “knew from before (the race) that Tsunoda might try and hold me up and make my life difficult. Like Pérez did to Lewis just a few years ago. So a lot of that was in our script and estimations already.
“But I managed to get through pretty quickly. And it was a bit close. It’s crazy thinking about it because you do think about it straight away. Like, ‘damn, if that was like five centimeters closer, it’s over.’”