Why Verstappen couldn’t use Hamilton's 2016 tactics in F1 finale

Max Verstappen’s victory at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was not enough to see him win the F1 world championship.

The Red Bull driver claimed a convincing eighth win of the 2025 season in the Abu Dhabi finale as he beat McLaren pair Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris to the chequered flag.

But third place was all Norris needed to clinch his maiden world championship as Verstappen missed out on a fifth drivers’ world title by just two points.

The championship permutations going into the Yas Marina showdown drew comparisons to 2016 when Lewis Hamilton deliberately slowed down in the final laps in a last-ditch attempt to win the title.

Hamilton needed to win the race with teammate Nico Rosberg lower than third in order to seal the championship, but the German held onto second ahead of the chasing pack and secured the trophy. 

Many expected Red Bull and Verstappen to deploy similar tactics on Sunday evening, including the 2016 world champion himself.

“They were very well-behaved today,” Rosberg told Sky Sports F1.

"I expected them to try a few more tricks earlier on, backing up a bit more. Or at least to try it at some point to see does it work or does it not work?”

Verstappen explains why he couldn’t bunch field up

Following the race, Verstappen explained why he was unable to bunch the field up.

“I had a lot of scenarios in my head but then I knew once the tyres Oscar had on the car then that would be quite difficult,” the Dutchman explained.

“We were probably a bit too quick up front, the others couldn’t really follow that well. I think Charles [Leclerc] drove his heart out today to try and get up to that podium. So that was also impressive to see that.

“They [McLaren] went for a two-stop, that made it even more complicated. Because if you stay on one stop, backing the whole thing up, it’s tough and I think anyway, this new layout around here makes it even harder to do that compared to 2016.”

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies admitted they had discussed employing the tactic.

"It was possible to do it. We didn't feel it was the right option for us," Mekies said. "We would have given up quite a large advantage by doing so.

"We didn't think playing tactics would give us an edge for the situations we were in, so we chose to stay out to maximise the advantage we had and concentrate on winning the race.

"We can't control what's behind us. We did discuss that option but stuck to our plan.”

Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko said McLaren’s decision to split tyre strategies across Norris and Piastri at the start complicated things.

"It was quite clever from their side. It gave them a lot of options. We were not expecting it,” Marko said.

"They did a clever move to put Piastri on hard tyre. That's why we couldn't bunch up the whole field, because the benefit would have been on the side of Piastri.

"It was not quite enough. It was one Red Bull against two McLarens and unfortunately we were hoping that Leclerc and Russell would have more speed, but that wasn't the case.

"The problem was that Ferrari and Mercedes were not strong enough."