F1's other three-way title deciders ahead of Norris, Verstappen, Piastri showdown

For the first time in 15 years, F1 heads to the season-finale with three drivers in with a chance of becoming world drivers’ champion. 

Lando Norris heads to Yas Marina as title favourite on 408 points, with Max Verstappen seeking a record-equalling fifth straight crown 12 points behind on 396, with Oscar Piastri the other contender on 392, 16 points behind his McLaren team-mate.

The full permutations for the trio are available below, but the basics are this. If Norris finishes on the podium, he will be Britain’s 11th world champion. Verstappen must be on the podium to have any chance, and if he wins the race, Norris must be at third, whilst Piastri’s route is that he must finish first or second and hope for the best with Norris at least sixth if the Australian wins the race.

Ahead of the first three-way shootout since 2010 (when it was four!), RacingNews365 has gone back through the history books to look at the other 10 occasions at least three drivers have gone into battle in the finale. 

1950 – the first season-finale

Juan Manuel Fangio headed to the Italian GP at Monza in the lead of the championship from Alfa Romeo team-mates Giuseppe Farina and Luigi Fagioli in the days of eight points for a win, and one more for fastest lap. 

Unfortunately for the great Argentine, his gearbox cried foul to put him out as Fagioli was never a contender. This cleared the path for ‘Nino’ Farina to win the race, and earn a place in the record books forevermore as the first ‘FIA Formula 1 World Drivers’ Champion – one of 34 drivers to do so. 

1956 – an astonishing act of sportsmanship

Fangio soon got over his 1950 heartbreak by winning in 1951 and then going back-to-back in ’54 and ’55, before joining old man Enzo at Ferrari for ’56, with the Scuderia running the D50s which he had been given after Lancia withdrew in ’55 following the death of Alberto Ascari – the 1952 and 1953 champion.

At the Monza finale, Fangio was in contention with team-mate Peter Collins and the fiery Jean Behra of Maserati. Fangio retired on Lap 19 of 50 with steering failure, Luigi Musso point-blankly telling Ferrari where to stick the order to hand over his car. Just 14 laps from the end, Collins handed his machine over to Fangio, costing himself the title and handing the Argentine his fourth. 

1959 – Pushing your way to the title

The first decade of the world championship ended as it started, with a three-way decider, this time between Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks at Riverside in the United States. 

But within five laps, it was all but over. Moss’s gearbox went on an early holiday, whilst Brooks, honouring a promise to his wife to have the car checked if he was unsure if it was safe, pitted after early contact. This paved the way for Brabham to secure the title, the first for a rear-engined car, ‘Black Jack’, memorably pushing his car over the line after it ran out of fuel on the final lap. 

1964 – the Battle of Britain, in Mexico

Nothing like a whiff of controversy as John Surtees, Graham Hill and Jim Clark did battle in Mexico as Hill and Clark sought to add to their respective 1962 and 1963 crowns.

Clark’s Lotus cleared off, but Hill moved into the P3 he needed, until being punted off by Lorenzo Bandini’s Ferrari, handing Clark the title. This stayed until Lap 64 of 65 when the Lotus broke, handing Hill back the championship, until Bandini let his Ferrari team-leader Surtees through for second on the final lap. 

To this day, Surtees remains the only person to have won a world championship on both two wheels and four, following his seven titles in what today is known as MotoGP. 

1968 – The rightful champion saves his team

The great Clark had been killed in a nothing F2 race at Hockenheim in April, with Hill faced with lifting the shattered Lotus, as he went into the finale in Mexico ahead of Jackie Stewart and 1967 champion Denny Hulme.

Hulme was out early with damper failure as Stewart battled problems of his own, paving the way for Hill to guide the heartbroken Colin Chapman to another championship double in the most ghastly of years.

1974 – McLaren get their first

As Norris and Piastri seek to become McLaren’s eighth world champion and deliver its 13th drivers’ title, in the 1974 US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen, Emerson Fittipaldi delivered the first.

He and Clay Regazzoni had gone into the finale locked on points (the only other time that has happened being 2021), with Jody Scheckter having an outside chance.

Neither Regazzoni nor Scheckter finished in the points, meaning it was a damp squib of a finale as Fittipaldi coasted home fourth. Scheckter would win the 1979 title for Ferrari.

1981 – a title decider in a Las Vegas car park

In 1981, and indeed 1982, the F1 title was decided in the car park of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and certainly not on the Strip as was the case for Verstappen in 2024.

Carlos Reutemann entered as the points leader, one clear of Nelson Piquet and six ahead of Jacques Laffite, and even stuck his Williams on pole. But in no uncertain terms, Reutemann choked and finished out of the points, a lap down. 

Due to the sheer physical strength required to drive the brutal early ground-effect cars around the tight, twisty circuit under a mid-afternoon sun, the new world champion Piquet had to be lifted from his car, battling exhaustion. 

1986 – And Colossally That’s Mansell

One of the most iconic pieces of commentary in Formula 1 history, and one of its most famous camera shots.

Heading down under, Nigel Mansell led the way from bitter enemy-cum-Williams team-mate Piquet, with the feuding pair allowing McLaren’s reigning champion Alain Prost into their exclusive fight despite having the best car with a constructors’ championship long sown-up. Sound familiar?

Anyway, with 19 laps to go, ‘Our Nige’ was in a comfy title-winning P3 until: ‘AND LOOK AT THAT, AND COLOSSALLY THAT’S MANSELL, THAT IS NIGEL MANSELL!’

At 180mph, Mansell suffered a left-rear blow-out, somehow keeping his car in a straight line and not heading for a firm introduction to a concrete wall. He was out, handing Piquet the title, until Williams interim boss Patrick Head called him in for a precautionary stop, handing the win and title to Prost. 

2007 – McLaren’s horror is realised

In the season it was chucked out of the constructors’ championship, fined $100 million for Spygate, calling into question the very existence of the team and in which Ron Dennis, a man scared by the Senna-Prost civil war, badly misjudged Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, McLaren went away with nothing.

In China, it had left Hamilton out for far too long on worn intermediates as the goal had become ‘STOP ALONSO’, despite him being one of the team’s two drivers, with Hamilton skating into the gravel, but he still stood an excellent chance of becoming F1’s first rookie champion, heading to the finale on 107 points to Alonso’s 103 with Kimi Raikkonen on 100.

These were the days of 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 for the top 10, with Hamilton only requiring a fifth place if Raikkonen won or second if Alonso did. On the opening lap, Hamilton tried to pass Alonso at Turn 4. The term ‘being hung out to dry’ is probably an accurate description of events, with further drama yet to follow.

On Lap 7, a gearbox gremlin struck, leaving Hamilton a lapped seventh at the flag once he got going again after the 30-second delay. Raikkonen won from Felipe Massa as Alonso was third. In the end, Raikkonen had 110 points, and Hamilton and Alonso were level on 109, Hamilton ahead on countback.

2010 – F1’s most unique decider between FOUR drivers

2025 is the 31st time the drivers’ title fight has gone to the final race, but only in 2010 have more than three drivers been in with a shout. 

Heading to Yas Marina, the situation was this. Alonso had 246 points, Mark Webber had 242, Sebastian Vettel 231 and Hamilton 222.

With 25 points for a win, Hamilton was effectively out of the running, but as Alonso and Webber snookered themselves, the sea parted for Vettel. 

The chain of events began on lap 1 after a scary incident involving Michael Schumacher and Vitantonio Liuzzi, in which the Italian had narrowly avoided striking Schumacher’s head with after launching on top of the Mercedes.

With the tyres proving durable, the likes of Robert Kubica, Nico Rosberg, and Vitaly Petrov all took their required pit-stop under the safety car and rejoined the train. They were going to the end.

Webber was out of sorts, striking a wall, and pitted early, on Lap 11, something Ferrari covered with Alonso on Lap 15.

This was a critical mistake, as Ferrari had failed to realise the threat to Alonso’s title was not Webber, but race-leader Vettel. Alonso rejoined behind the Kubica-Rosberg-Petrov convoy and once it all shook out, the Spanish racer was running in P7 – earning six points to move to 252. 

But if Vettel won, he would move to 256, meaning Alonso needed to finish fourth. In other words, he needed to get past the Kubica-Rosberg-Petrov fight, but despite being egged on by a familiar face with one A.Stella as his race engineer, the Renault’s superior straight-line speed, in the final race before DRS, meant Alonso stayed just where he was.

Game. Set. Match. Weltmeister. 

The podium was made up of 2008 champion Hamilton, the 2009 one (Jenson Button) and Button’s successor, with Vettel’s 2010 success at 23 years, four months, and 11 days making him the youngest-ever F1 world champion, a record he still holds to this day.