Premeditated McLaren call in Piastri race strategy

While F1 fans marvelled at Oscar Piastri’s opening lap overtake on Lando Norris at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, McLaren have revealed it was all part of the pre-race strategy.

With both drivers in contention to be crowned world champion depending on the results of the season finale, team orders, strategy and cleaning racing were widely discussed among drivers and McLaren management.

Norris only needed to finish on the podium to claim his maiden title while Piastri needed to win with his teammate 6th or lower. Moreover, Max Verstappen, who was second on the leader board, was the biggest threat to McLaren suffering the same double heartbreak as 2007.

The Red Bull driver was on pole for the final race of the season with Norris second and Piastri on the second row.

As the lights went out, the Australian pulled off a brilliant move around the outside of Norris to move into second place and begin his chase on Verstappen.

Piastri would finish in second place behind Verstappen and one spot in front of Norris, meaning the Briton won the title by two points.

Post race, McLaren boss Andrea Stella revealed the impressive first lap overtake was pre-meditated.

"Obviously, we wanted to have absolutely clean racing on the first lap," Stella said.

"But we also discussed – with Oscar on a hard tyre – not making life difficult for Oscar to take the second place and then try and attack Verstappen – it was a strategic option that Lando was supporting.

"It was a good and fair overtake by Oscar, but in itself this is a scenario that we discussed, so it wasn't the hardest of the battles, because there was a general interest.

"Everyone was clear that the hard would have been a good tyre. And if there's somebody on a hard chasing somebody on a medium, the one on the medium needs to push and at some stage might have to pit.”

For the first time this season, McLaren split their garage. No data from either driver’s race was shared with the others in a bid to honour papaya rules and give both cars equal opportunity to lay claim to the title.

Piastri started on the hard tyre while Norris went out on mediums which also explains the early overtake.

"There wasn't anything left out there,” Piastri said. “Obviously, we tried a bit of a gamble on the strategy to give ourselves some different options and hope that the stars aligned to give ourselves the best chance.

"Ultimately, in the end, that didn't happen. I think given as well I missed a practice session, it took a little bit to find my feet, so I think that was the maximum we could have achieved. We didn't have an answer for Max's pace. So pretty happy with the weekend. Not much more we could have done."