The 2025 Formula One season ended on Dec. 7 after the final race of the season concluded the Driver’s Championship Title.
McLaren driver Lando Norris ended the season as World Driver Champion after placing third on the podium in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Throughout the season, Norris has been a favorite for the World Driver’s Championship Title, or the award given to the driver who has scored the most points throughout the season. Drivers in F1 racing can score points based on their placings.
Sachin Bulfer, president of Carlmont High School’s F1 Club and a dedicated McLaren fan, said the papaya team’s dominance this season has been a highlight of his year.
“This was definitely the best season we’ve had in a long time. It was a really fair championship battle,” Bulfer said.
Bulfer also noted that the team has grown significantly in the past years.
“Everyone’s really got to be happy seeing McLaren on top as the World Constructors Champion. It’s great to see the progression they’ve made over the last few years, especially with Lando there in the past seven years, from when they were a backmarker middle-field team,” Bulfer said. “It’s kind of interesting to see how they’ve grown since he joined, and to see where they are now. The constructors’ champions, like their management team and engineering teams, have grown significantly. It’s a lot of skill as a team.”
However, the season’s end also brought concerns regarding the treatment of the other McLaren driver, Oscar Piastri.
“I was kind of disappointed by, aside from their pure performances, their team management, the papaya rules, the team orders, and the favoring of one driver over the other, even though they said they weren’t. It was kind of upsetting to see,” Bulfer said.
Piastri held the championship lead for a significant part of the season, but ultimately lost it to Norris and then his second-place spot to Dutch Red Bull driver Max Verstappen. After multiple verbal disagreements with his team, the media has begun to say that the dynamic within the team between the individual drivers and team management is skewed or unfair. The McLaren team’s papaya rules are the team’s policy, stating that they will treat both drivers equally and not have a first and second driver, unlike most of the other teams. However, the media has commented that some of the decisions regarding the championship points were unfair to Piastri.
Naura Saleem, the F1 Club vice president and longtime Max Verstappen supporter, had his own perspective on the season’s ending.
“It’s very sad that Max didn’t win his fifth, because he was able to pull off that incredible comeback, and it would have been nice to see. However, while Max is still incredible and worked hard for the championship, Lando also worked very hard, and he deserves it. Even Max said so himself,” Saleem said.
Not everyone who watches F1 roots for a specific team, though. For motorsports enthusiast Peter Hopelain, the beauty of the season was the competition itself.
“I see something a bit different. What I saw was Piastri had a championship-worthy drive. One worthy of a championship. For context to support this perspective, or another way of saying it, I think McLaren, the team, won Norris’s Championship, not the other way around,” Hopelain said.
As the season closes, the Carlmont F1 Club is already preparing for next year. Members are planning watch parties, off-season discussions, and prediction brackets for pre-season testing.
“About the off-season, there’s always stuff to talk about. There’s always racing news, and there are other motorsports. We are not only the F1 club, but also a motorsport club,” Bulfer said.
Bulfer hopes the club continues expanding.
“It’s been really great to see the growing popularity of the sport, especially after the F1 movie and expansion to the United States, and the growing expansion of the club, with new members joining, new people coming, and younger generations kind of getting into it and passing the torch on. So it’s been really fun to see the club this year,” Bulfer said.
