{"id":332620,"date":"2025-12-08T15:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T15:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/332620\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T15:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T15:38:10","slug":"red-bull-explains-why-verstappen-didnt-pit-straight-after-piastri-in-abu-dhabi-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/332620\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Bull explains why Verstappen didn\u2019t pit straight after Piastri in Abu Dhabi GP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laurent Mekies has applauded McLaren<\/a>\u2019s strategy for Formula 1\u2019s title-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which left his Red Bull team with a tough decision to make for Max Verstappen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After qualifying third, Oscar Piastri<\/a> was given hard tyres for the opening stint of the race, unlike Verstappen\u2019s and Lando Norris<\/a>\u2019 mediums. This meant Piastri stayed out longer, and a potential well-timed safety car intervention could even have helped him to victory.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most strategies recommended by Pirelli involved a first stint on mediums, and Red Bull admittedly was surprised that McLaren willingly risked Piastri losing ground at the start on the hard compound.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was quite clever from their side,\u201d team boss Mekies said. \u201cIt gave them a lot of options and ultimately gave us two scenarios to battle for the win. So yeah, we were not expecting it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piastri even passed title-contending team-mate Norris<\/a> for second on the opening lap, before his very long opening stint prevented Verstappen from engaging in backing-up tactics to jeopardise Norris\u2019 race.<\/p>\n

\"Laurent <\/p>\n

Laurent Mekies, Red Bull Racing Team Principal<\/p>\n

Photo by: Erik Junius<\/p>\n

Had Piastri won, Verstappen would have lost the title regardless of what happened to Norris, so he couldn\u2019t afford to slow down while the Australian was in the lead.<\/p>\n

Verstappen\u2019s only opportunity to emulate Lewis Hamilton<\/a>\u2019s 2016 attempt to bunch up the pack came after right Piastri pitted. However, changing the Red Bull\u2019s tyres on the next lap would have carried a risk of losing the lead to the Australian if the pitstop was short of perfect.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

In the end, Red Bull believed it had more to lose by pitting and bunching up the field than maintaining Verstappen\u2019s lead and hoping Norris might somehow lose another position.<\/p>\n

Asked about a potential pitstop, Mekies said: \u201cIt was possible to do it. We didn’t feel it was the right option for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would have given up quite a large advantage by doing so. And we didn’t think that playing tactics would give us an edge today for the situations we were in. So we chose to stay out to maximise the advantage we had and to concentrate on winning the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we said, we can’t control what’s behind us. So we did discuss that option, but we stick to our plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laurent Mekies has applauded McLaren\u2019s strategy for Formula 1\u2019s title-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which left his Red…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[141367,49,48,578,576,577,591,1885,590,592,146465,2190,82,143131],"class_list":["post-332620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-abu-dhabi-gp","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lando-norris","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mclaren","tag-oscar-piastri","tag-red-bull-explains-why-verstappen-didnu2019t-pit-straight-after-piastri-in-abu-dhabi-gp","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports","tag-yas-marina-circuit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}