How Pirelli’s tyre mandate wreaked havoc on the 2025 F1 title fight
- Peter Johnson
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
Written by Peter Johnson, Edited by Meghana Sree
Exceptionally high demands on Pirelli tyres at the Lusail International Circuit forced Formula One’s tyre supplier to implement a one-off regulation, with drastic consequences for the title battle.
Since its arrival on the Formula One calendar in 2021, the Lusail International Circuit in Qatar has become characterised as something of a tyre killer.
Lewis Hamilton was a high profile victim of tyre failure in 2024, while Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar was denied a strong points finish this year with a puncture on the penultimate lap of the race.
Since 2023, the FIA has imposed limits on the number of laps any given set of tyres can do around Lusail before a driver is forced to pit for fresh rubber.
Unlike the mandated two-stop rule introduced for Monaco earlier this year, which was introduced in an attempt to spice up the racing action, this regulation was introduced purely for safety reasons. Of the 16-corner circuit, only the left-handed hairpin of Turn 6 can be considered a “slow” corner, with tyres facing intense strain around the rest of the lap.
The punctures we see every year in Qatar seem to justify such measures, but what effect did the one-off regulation have on the racing action?
In the context of last weekend’s race, and indeed the 2025 title battle more widely, the consequences of the regulation proved to be astronomical.
In order to complete Sunday’s 57-lap with the minimum two pit stops, every driver had to reach at least Lap 7 on their opening stint, leaving 50 laps to be split evenly between two further stints.
Of course the option remained to go as deep as Lap 25 on the opening stint, as long as any driver who went longer still performed another stop within a further 25 laps.
The incident between Nico Hülkenberg and Pierre Gasly at the start of Lap 7, which saw the former retire from the race and the deployment of a Safety Car, left strategists up and down the pit lane with mere moments to make a decision on whether to pit.
Safety Car periods often provide the optimum time for a driver to pit, especially if they are approaching the end of a stint, but with Qatar’s 25-lap rule the decision surely could not have been more clear cut — pit now, with 50 laps remaining, and then once more on Lap 32, and complete the 57-lap race with two 25-lap stints.
The McLaren pair, of course also the top two in the Drivers’ Championship, opted to stay out, choosing to maintain track position on a circuit where overtaking is notoriously difficult.
The problem for Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris was that literally nobody else did. Esteban Ocon did hold on for a further lap, but he too pitted behind the Safety Car.
Max Verstappen, who had been running second on the road behind Piastri in the opening stages, found himself right on the tail of both McLarens at the restart with an entire pit stop’s advantage.
We know how the race unfolded after that — Piastri and Norris scampered off up the road, pulled a gap and managed to re-emerge from their first pit stops behind only Verstappen, Carlos Sainz and Kimi Antonelli.
Every driver then pitted once more, as stipulated, with the McLaren duo again out of sync. Piastri clawed his way back to second, while Norris managed a late move on Antonelli to take fourth.
It is not the first time we have seen a leading driver or team get a tyre call so badly wrong — remember Lewis Hamilton, who was famously the only man on the grid for the restart of the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix, while everybody else behind him pitted for slick tyres on a drying track.
The Briton, still on inters, pitted instantly and rejoined last, before carving his way through the field for an eventual podium. The guaranteed victory and seven lost points, however, were just one example of the many marginal moments that ultimately swung the championship in Verstappen’s favour that year.
On this occasion, it was Piastri who was denied seven points and an almost-certain victory, while championship leader Norris lost at least three points and potentially as many as six.
Verstappen, on the other hand, turned a likely second or third place into the most unlikely of victories.
McLaren’s management made no attempt to excuse their error, while Piastri in particular made little secret of his disappointment at a race victory gone begging.
McLaren CEO Zac Brown bluntly admitted: “We made the wrong decision. We let [Piastri and Norris] down.”
Team Principal Andrea Stella explained: “We wanted to have enough flexibility in the race in case of another Safety Car, which would have paid off very well — but there was no other Safety Car.
“We are disappointed because we have haemorrhaged points in the last two events. Our drivers are doing a very, very good job and if anything it is the team that needs to elevate their game.”
Piastri, meanwhile, was “speechless” at his foregone victory, while Norris said he just wanted to “go to bed”.
The upshot of McLaren’s strategy calamity, even more disastrous in the case of the team’s double disqualification in Las Vegas, means that four-time world champion Verstappen remains squarely in the title fight heading into this weekend’s title decider.
The Dutchman was 104 points behind then-championship leader Piastri following the Dutch Grand Prix on 31st August, but eight races later sits four points ahead of Piastri and just 12 behind Norris.
Verstappen has made mistakes of his own this season, not least his red mist moment in Spain that cost him a chunk of points.
McLaren have, however, had plenty of opportunities to squeeze him out of the title picture, but have failed to do so.
The papaya catastrophe in Qatar will only add to the pressure in Abu Dhabi this weekend. Verstappen is no stranger to a title decider, while Norris and Piastri have shown at various stages this season that they are not immune to pressure.
Now even the pit wall and garage full of engineers are allowing mistakes to creep in — one more misstep from any corner this weekend and Verstappen will no doubt be poised to complete the greatest championship comeback of all time.
