McLaren's Abu Dhabi Overtake Was Pre-Planned Tactic, Not Pure Racing

Oscar Piastri’s dramatic outside pass on Lando Norris at Abu Dhabi wasn’t a spontaneous racing moment—it was McLaren’s pre-race tactical play to pressure Max Verstappen’s tires. Team principal Andrea Stella confirmed the Lap 1 position swap executed with "inch-perfect precision" was part of a calculated strategy split, where Piastri started on hard tires to force Verstappen into early graining while Norris secured his third-place championship finish on mediums.

Why it matters:

This exposes how deeply teams now engineer intra-team dynamics for title battles. With Norris needing only third to clinch the drivers’ crown, McLaren sacrificed his optimal race setup to attack Verstappen—a stark illustration of how 2024’s razor-thin championship margins pushed teams to unprecedented levels of premeditated racing. The move also reveals Red Bull’s strategic vulnerability: Verstappen’s ability to defy tire degradation expectations ultimately neutralized McLaren’s gamble.

The Details:

• Strategic Split: McLaren sent Norris (championship contender) onto mediums for a safe one-stop, while Piastri started on hards—a surprise to Red Bull—to shadow Verstappen and pressure his medium tires into graining.
• Pre-Race Agreement: Drivers discussed letting Piastri through cleanly if he challenged for second, with Norris agreeing "not to make life difficult" to enable the Verstappen attack. Stella called it "good and fair overtaking" but admitted "it wasn’t the hardest of battles."
• Tire Gamble Backfired: Verstappen defied expectations by running 25 laps on mediums without significant graining, rendering Piastri’s hard-tire pressure ineffective. "We were surprised Max could go so long and so fast," Stella admitted.
• Last-Minute Decision: The strategy was finalized just hours before race start after Saturday hypotheses and pre-dawn discussions—part of McLaren’s "collective decision" process involving sleepless recalculations.
• Driver Perspective: Piastri called it a necessary gamble: "We tried a bit of a gamble on the strategy... ultimately that didn’t happen. We didn’t have an answer for Max’s pace."

What's next:

While the tactic failed at Yas Marina, it sets a precedent for 2025 where teams may increasingly choreograph early-lap maneuvers in tight title fights. McLaren’s willingness to risk intra-team friction for championship points suggests closer battles will bring more pre-planned "racing"—though tire behavior unpredictability remains the wildcard. For Verstappen, the race confirmed Red Bull’s 2024 tire management edge, but with new regulations looming, rivals will study this data to close the gap. As Stella noted, "the stars" didn’t align this time—but in F1’s high-stakes chess match, the next gambit is always being plotted.