Lando Norris returned to Yas Marina on the final day of the 2025 post-season Abu Dhabi test to close out his championship year, driving the MCL39 he used to secure the title while wearing a special gold crash helmet. Norris confirmed he will adopt the number 1 next season, but the McLaren carried his familiar number 4 on the nosecone in Abu Dhabi; the switch to #1 will come into effect from pre-season running at the end of January.
Norris ran in the morning session, completing 71 laps, before team-mate Oscar Piastri took over in the afternoon. Reflecting on the day, Norris said he enjoyed getting back into the championship car and that the team worked through Pirelli’s test programme, delivering useful feedback to help prepare the package for 2026. He added his thanks to the crew and said he planned to rest before the new season.
The one-day test required every team to run both of their race cars: one driven by an experienced 2026 tyre-development driver and the other by a young driver with fewer than three grand prix starts. Fourteen current race drivers took part, using modified 2025 mule cars to assess Pirelli’s 2026 tyre compounds ahead of next year’s major rule changes to chassis, aerodynamics and power units.
Driver line-ups included Red Bull running Isack Hadjar in the senior car and British prospect Arvid Lindblad in the Racing Bulls entry as he prepares for his rookie season. Ferrari split its programme between Charles Leclerc in the morning and Lewis Hamilton in the afternoon. Williams (Alex Albon, Carlos Sainz), Haas (Esteban Ocon, Oliver Bearman) and Sauber (Nico Hülkenberg, Gabriel Bortoleto) also used both race drivers. Kimi Antonelli spent the day in a Mercedes mule, Stoffel Vandoorne carried out Pirelli duties for Aston Martin, and Jak Crawford returned to run the other Aston car.
To gather relevant low-downforce data, most teams ran with a fixed 300 kph speed limit; a handful of cars fitted with experimental versions of the 2026 “straight-line mode,” including Mercedes, were permitted to run uncapped, using a front-wing system to mimic active aerodynamic effects.
Antonelli set the pace among the race drivers on the 2026 tyres, posting a best lap of 1:25.170 on the C5 compound in the final hour. Piastri was second fastest, Hamilton third and Norris fourth. On 2025-spec rubber, rookie quick-lap honours went to Jak Crawford with a 1:23.766, ahead of Sauber’s Paul Aron and Williams’ Luke Browning.