McLaren are Formula 1 constructors' champions for the first time in 26 years after Lando Norris beat Ferrari's Carlos Sainz to win the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Having put themselves in full control of the lucrative teams' title race by locking out the grid's front row, McLaren experienced a more nervous race under the Yas Marina floodlights than might have otherwise been the case after Oscar Piastri was spun around by Max Verstappen into the first corner.
But Norris never put a foot wrong from pole position and kept Sainz at arm's length across the 58 laps to claim his fourth win of the year and secure McLaren their ninth Constructors' Championship - but first since 1998.
Ferrari, whose hopes of a final-day turnaround from 21 points behind almost-absolutely rested on winning the race, at least finished their season with a double podium with Sainz driving strongly on his final outing for the team to second and Charles Leclerc brilliantly charging from the grid's back row to third.
And ahead of his blockbuster winter move to replace Sainz at Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton delivered his own stirring race-day turnaround on his Mercedes farewell to finish fourth from 16th on the grid.
Hamilton's final lap as a Mercedes driver after a 12-year period of unparralled success saw him pass team-mate George Russell around the outside into Turn Nine.
"That was the drive of a world champion. Amazing," said Toto Wolff amid an emotional series of messages exchanged between team and departing driver on Mercedes team radio after the race.
Verstappen, who clinched this year's Drivers' Championship for the fourth season in a row a fortnight ago in Las Vegas, ended his campaign in a distant sixth for deposed teams' champions Red Bull after losing ground in the Piastri collision at the start and then being handed a 10-second time penalty for it by stewards.
Pierre Gasly concluded the fine end to his season in seventh to secure Alpine sixth in the Constructors' Championship ahead of Haas, who took eighth with Nico Hulkenberg.
Fernando Alonso took ninth for Aston Martin with Piastri, who picked up his own 10s penalty for hitting the back of Williams' Franco Colapinto after returning to the track after end-of-lap one repairs, recovering to 10th.
Sergio Perez's miserable season in the second Red Bull, meanwhile, ended on the second lap after he had been tapped into a spin by Valtteri Bottas on the opening tour. The Mexican has a contrast at the team for next season but it appears increasingly unlikely that he will retain the seat having scored just nine points in the final eight race weekends.
McLaren back on top for first time in a generation - how Norris closed it out
Just seven years after McLaren, one of F1's oldest and most storied teams, appeared at their lowest ebb after finishing second from last in the constructors' standings, Sunday's title-winning result absolutely confirmed their return to the very top of the sport.
The Woking team's pre-race lead of 21 points had always made them big favourites to close the title out on Sunday, a status underlined when Norris and Piastri qualified first and second with Ferrari only third and, due to a grid penalty and then difficult Saturday, 19th with Leclerc.
But the race's opening yards unexpectedly created what team chief Zak Brown later termed the "worst two hours of my life".
While Norris made a strong getaway from pole on the outside, Piastri's mirrors on the inside started to be filled by Red Bull blue towards the Turn One braking zone as Verstappen, who had qualified fourth, launched a bold bid for second place on the Australian's inside.
But as Piastri came across to take the left-hander, Verstappen was not sufficiently far up the inside and collected the McLaren on the inside in costly contact that spun both cars around.
And it was Piastri who came off worse, the McLaren ending up facing backwards in the run-off area as the pack streamed past on his inside.
Although he was swiftly able to get going, Piastri had to pit for fresh tyres at the end of the opening tour before his race was then further compounded soon on his return to the track when he hit Colapinto up the back under braking on the backstraight, earning his own 10-second sanction from the stewards that he would serve at his next pit stop.
So with his team-mate almost immediately out of the reckoning at the front, Norris was now suddenly carrying McLaren's hopes solely on his own with Ferrari's prospects boosted as Sainz moved up into second and Leclerc surged to eighth by the end of the first lap.
Yet while mistakes from team and driver may have ultimately undone their bid for the drivers' crown against Verstappen, Norris was supreme here as the Briton opened small, but steady, leads over Sainz either side of the sole round of pit stops. He ended up winning the race by 5.8 seconds.
"It feels incredible. Not for myself but for the whole team," said Norris, who was promoted to a race seat at the Woking outfit in 2019. "They have done an amazing job from where we were at the beginning.
"I'm so proud of everyone. It's been a lovely journey. To end the season like this is perfect.
"For us to win the Constructors' Championship after 26 years is pretty special."
Brown, who along with team principal Andrea Stella has transformed the Woking outfit's fortunes over recent years, said that the faultless Norris "carried us" over the winning line.
"To not make any mistakes, and we were worried about Safety Cars, I was worried about everything, and he drove flawlessly," said the McLaren chief executive. "So next, try to repeat constructors' and get the drivers'. I'll let Oscar and Lando figure that one out!"
Hamilton's final Mercedes flourish to close legendary Mercedes partnership
Hamilton's record-breaking career at Mercedes may not have been built on the kind of fourth-place finish he achieved on Sunday, but his final result of his glittering Silver Arrows career came at the end of a comeback drive up with the best of his dozen years at the team.
After Wolff had been left apoplectic by the team strategy errors that saw a luckless Hamilton dropping out in Q1 on Saturday and starting 16th, the Briton started the race as the only driver in the field running on Pirelli's most durable tyre compound, the hard.
And despite the compound being the slowest in F1's range, Hamilton made consistent and steady early progress and moved into the points by the race's 12th lap.
Hamilton brought himself into play by extending his opening stint to lap 34 - by which time he was fourth - which then meant he re-joining on fresher medium tyres than those ahead of him for the final stint, in seventh place.
Encouraged over team radio by his trusted long-time race engineer Peter Bonnington that a podium may not yet been out of the question - and further rallied by one final call of "HammerTime" - Hamilton overtook Hulkenberg and then Gasly before setting off after Russell in the sister car.
Russell had made his first pit stop eight laps earlier than Hamilton and was now himself on the harder, slower compound.
Catching his team-mate at one second per lap to quickly reduce what had been the younger Briton's 12-second advantage, Hamilton arrived on the back of the lead Mercedes for the final tours and then, on his final lap for the team, went around the outside of Russell for fourth into Turn Nine to claim fourth with a flourish.
Reflecting on the conclusion to his 246th and final race as a Mercedes driver, Hamilton said: "I just didn't give up, I just kept pushing, like 'Come on, we can get there' and then switched on to the different tyres, and the car came alive - but I had a massive gap to close, so I just focused on just getting absolutely everything from the car and not giving up.
"I wanted to finish on as much of a high and just give every ounce of me to the team, as they've given to me all these years."
