Following a 2-3 finish to seal the Drivers’ World Championship for Lando Norris at the F1 Abu Dhabi GP, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella reflected on an intriguing race that was won by Max Verstappen in a print media session.
Speaking in the post-qualifying press conference, Max Verstappen hinted he would not be pulling out any tricks to try and take the championship.
“I’m going to try to win that race.
“But of course, with that, I still need a little bit of help or luck to win the championship. But we’ll see how that goes tomorrow.”
The Dutchman stuck to his word. After holding off Lando Norris into turn 1, he would deliver his maximum pace on the day.
Despite the best efforts of Charles Leclerc, McLaren could comfortably bring it home in P2 and P3. It was enough for Lando Norris to take the Drivers’ Championship by 2 points.
Andrea Stella discusses Max Verstappen not backing up his McLaren drivers in F1 Abu Dhabi GP
Asked if he was surprised if Verstappen did not try to reverse the McLarens towards car behind, Stella noted the Dutchman’s comments before the F1 Abu Dhabi GP got going.
He also believes Red Bull had the fastest car on race day. The Italian engineer and McLaren team principal praised the turnaround they produced after their struggles through the European summer.
“I think Max had said a couple of times before the race that I’m going to do my race, I’m going to win it and I will need just some luck. And I think that’s what he did.
“At the same time, with the two McLarens starting with split tyres, it would have made, I think, any attempt to control the race a bit more difficult.
“So, I’m not necessarily that surprised that it didn’t happen, and I think it’s also a good thing that it didn’t happen.
“It was a good race, it was an interesting race, one stop, two stops.
“The Red Bull proved to be the fastest car once again. I think they have clearly done a very good job of overcoming some difficulties from a performance point of view in the middle of the season. They gave us an enormous challenge to beat them on track. Often we didn’t manage to do so, but it’s important that we managed to do it in the championship we landed.
“So, not surprised in any way, not even surprised that they are finishing the season being probably the best car.”
Andrea Stella on McLaren splitting their strategy against Max Verstappen at the F1 Abu Dhabi GP
With Yuki Tsunoda down in P10, McLaren had a 2 vs 1 at the front of the field at the start. So, they ultimately split strategies: Lando Norris started on mediums, Oscar Piastri on hards.
On the opening lap, the Australian passed his British teammate into turn 9. From there McLaren tried to put pressure on Max Verstappen with car 81.
However, magnificent management of the fragile medium tyre by the four-time F1 World Champion meant Piastri never got a sniff. Nonetheless, the hard tyre call somewhat limited the Dutch driver’s options. Had he backed cars up in the first stint, the Australian would have had a massive advantage later in the race.
Stella explained the reasoning about it.
“Once we saw the result of qualifying, we started to think about what the start tyre would have meant in terms of strategic options.
“I think everyone entered the race today not clear whether it was a 1 or a 2, but I think 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. We were if anything a bit surprised that Max could go so long and so fast on the medium tyres.
Meetings took place and a team call
“It’s always a kind of a collective decision, because drivers bring their point of view, the strategy team bring their point of view, the race engineers, myself as a team principal. Zak actually said he was happy, so final sign off.
“So it’s a collective decision which is made through several conversations, it’s not even a single meeting. You sometimes have a hypothesis on Saturday, you go, you sleep on it, in the morning somebody comes and we consider this.
“The decision was made a couple of hours before the race.”
