YAS MARINA, Abu Dhabi — McLaren team principal Andrea Stella is confident Sunday’s title decider in Abu Dhabi will play out “within the boundaries of sportsmanship and fairness” as his two drivers go up against Red Bull’s Max Verstappen for the sport’s biggest prize.
McLaren’s Lando Norris leads Verstappen by 12 points in the standings and teammate Oscar Piastri by 16 points, meaning he can guarantee his first title by finishing on the podium at Sunday’s season finale.
Verstappen will start on pole position ahead of Norris in second and Piastri in third, but even if the Red Bull driver wins on Sunday, he needs Norris to finish in fourth place or lower to secure his fifth championship.
One option open to Verstappen if he is leading the two McLarens on track would be to back his title rivals into the chasing pack like Lewis Hamilton did to Nico Rosberg at the same circuit in 2016.
Speaking after qualifying, Verstappen played down the effectiveness of that strategy on the current layout of the Yas Marina Circuit, but Stella expects the reigning champion to explore every tactic available to secure the title.
“In terms of the options that Max has available to try and play his cards, honestly I’m not too worried,” he said on Saturday night. “I think we will see some interesting racing, but I’m sure all this will happen within the boundaries of sportsmanship and fairness.
“In terms of how the race will unfold there may be reasons to control the pace even from a tyre point of view, not necessarily because of some strategic reason for the lead car.
“So definitely we will see some pace control and it will be interesting to see whether the tyre degradation means that the race will be more on a one or a two-stop, I think this is a bit of an open question.”
Stella is expecting Norris to approach the opening lap with a level of “prudence” given that he has the most to lose in the championship equation.
“I think from Lando’s point of view — considering the inside of corner one in Abu Dhabi — I think he will just be relatively prudent,” Stella added. “It’s one of those where from the inside you will not necessarily get the better exit and the car on the outside can close, so I think there will be some prudency, which is I think what I would recommend, certainly to Lando.
“He’s in a very strong position from this point of view, so I think that’s the approach.”
And Stella remains confident that having two drivers close together at the front of the pack will be an advantage, even if Verstappen backs one of them into the other in Sunday’s race.
“We have more options to play,” he said “At some stage if you slow down too much you may be susceptible to being attacked with undercuts, you may expose yourself in terms of being overtaken, so I think definitely it’s good that we are there with two cars.
“So that’s the position I would take, rather than having the two cars split and separated on track.”
