Written by The stage has been set. The supporting roles in this year’s drama have taken a step back, leaving the three Championship contenders to face off. Max Verstappen takes his eighth pole position of the season and has Lando Norris alongside, with Oscar Piastri behind. There’s a race to win – but bigger issues to consider as well.
Is strategy going to play a part? Almost certainly. We have Verstappen and Piastri with nothing to lose and different ways of approaching this race. Doing whatever the other guy doesn’t is a time-honoured way to make things happen when a Championship comes down to the wire – and we’ve seen it happen here before.
What happened last year (and the year before that)?
The 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was a pretty straightforward race in terms of strategy. The top eight all did a one-stop, and seven of those, including the podium party, all went medium>hard.
Charles Leclerc in P3 went early, stopping on Lap 20; team mate Carlos Sainz went on Lap 25 and Norris came in on Lap 26, retained the lead, and duly won to ensure McLaren took the Constructors’ Championship back to Woking.
Lewis Hamilton used the reverse hard>medium strategy to come home P4, having started the race P16. He went to Lap 34, over-running his midfield rivals before pitting from P3.
Fernando Alonso came home P9, the first car on a two-stop strategy. He went medium>hard>hard, making his stops on Laps 13 and 37 of the 58-lap race. The final point went to Piastri. He pitted off his medium start tyre on Lap 4, having damaged his front wing, and ran to the flag with two long stints on hard tyres.
Qualifying Highlights: 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Interestingly, despite having the same compounds, this was a different race to 2023, when the top seven all ran the medium>hard>hard two-stop.
Very little changed, but an early pit stop for Alonso in 2023 triggered a cascade that, across five laps, went all the way to the head of the field, with everyone pitting to protect against the undercut. It might have happened again last year – but there was more field spread and thus the leaders didn’t feel obliged to cover the midfield threat.
What’s the fastest way this time?
According to Pirelli’s sims, the one-stop is the way to go. The fastest way to the flag is the medium>hard one-stop race, with an optimum pit window between Laps 20-26.
This is what happened last year, and with the same tyre allocation for 2025, it’s the most straightforward way to go racing this time. The thing which may stop it from happening is if midfield runners feel like they’re not going anywhere in a DRS train, attempt an undercut, and suck everyone else in.