Max Verstappen hopes the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is not “straightforward” for McLaren as he bids to beat Lando Norris to the Formula 1 title - and is expected to play a role in making that the case if needed.
Verstappen earned a brilliant pole position at the Yas Marina Circuit but championship leader Norris will start alongside him on the front row.
Norris has a 12-point lead over Verstappen so even if the Red Bull driver wins he needs Norris to finish off the podium to win his fifth title in a row.
So while Verstappen’s immediate priority will be to retain the lead, a straightforward drive focused solely on winning the race will not be enough unless Norris drops back at the start or suffers an even bigger problem in the race.
There is a good chance Verstappen will require help from the cars behind, headed by the third title protagonist Oscar Piastri, then George Russell, Charles Leclerc and Fernando Alonso. And Verstappen can directly affect that by backing the pack up behind him if needed.
“I hope it's not straightforward, the race, but hopefully that's not because of me,” Verstappen said.
The situation is similar to the one Lewis Hamilton faced in 2016, when he backed Mercedes team-mate and championship leader Nico Rosberg into the cars behind. Hamilton’s only option was to drive slower than he could to make Rosberg vulnerable.
It did not work but here the context is different. Directly behind Norris on the grid is Piastri, who will need to pass his team-mate to have any chance of winning the championship himself, plus other drivers who at least have more competitive machinery than what the Mercedes drivers went up against nine years ago.
That means Verstappen can complicate Norris’s race, and Piastri’s by extension, more effectively than Hamilton could. And one driver in the pack expects him to do exactly that.
“If we finish lap one in the order we start the race, then definitely [Max will back people up],” said Russell.
“He's not just going to drive off into the distance and hand Lando an easy podium.”
Russell added that it is straightforward to do without taking extreme measures: “Backing up the pack on a street track, as an example, is a very normal thing to do. Singapore, you control the pace, and then you try and extend the gap around the pitstops, so you don't need to drive like a hooligan, or dangerously, to do that.
“You can just manage by three or four tenths more, and that will condense. At some tracks, you can easily drop half a second or a second at certain points without being dangerous, without causing risk to yourself.
“So yeah, you'd expect him to be doing that.”
Verstappen did not rule it out. However, he mentioned two factors that are different.
First Verstappen pointed out that “it was a different layout” in 2016, suggesting that either the changes to the track now have made such a tactic less disruptive or more perhaps even more risky for the car in front.
And second, that the tyres are more robust now so it does not necessarily hurt the car behind as much.
“I feel like now you get towed around a lot more, so it's probably not as easy to do something like that,” Verstappen said.
“Cars are also completely different to back then. I felt like it was a lot easier back then to back it up, because the tyres would overheat a lot when you would get close.
“I remember even in 2016 in some qualifying laps you couldn't go flat out in sector one to keep the tyres alive in the last sector.
“So, it's very different times.”
That being said, Verstappen is highly unlikely to communicate his intentions in advance. Especially because, as Russell said, “everything can change after lap one if Lando makes a good start and gets the lead”.
That will render any pre-planned strategy null and void. But if Verstappen does lead his main championship rival out of Turn 1, he will do whatever he can to swing the race and the title outcome in his favour – and he would be entirely justified in doing so.
“All out," Verstappen said of his race approach.
"I have nothing to lose. Of course, we're going to try to win the race. I'm going to defend; if I need to attack I’ll attack.
“Because what can happen? You’re either second or third – or you win. That would be fantastic.”
