Undercut vs Overcut in 2025: strategy wasn’t decided in the pits — it was decided in the gap after them
If you want the cleanest summary of 2025’s strategic reality, start with the standings.
- Drivers’ Championship (final): Lando Norris 423, Max Verstappen 421, Oscar Piastri 410
- Constructors’ Championship (final): McLaren 833, Mercedes 469, Red Bull Racing 451, Ferrari 398
A two-point title margin doesn’t come from “good strategy” in the generic sense. It comes from specific choices made in specific windows — and the undercut vs overcut debate is where those margins showed up most often.
But here’s the part broadcast doesn’t have time for:
An undercut isn’t a magic trick. An overcut isn’t a gamble.
They’re both just ways of buying lap time.
And in 2025, lap time was bought (or wasted) in one place more than any other: the gap between your out-lap and your rival’s in-lap — when tyres, traffic, pit loss, and DRS trains decide whether the stop is a weapon or a self-inflicted penalty.
If you want to pressure-test how a single strategy call could have flipped the title fight, run your own scenarios in RaceMate’s championship calculator: RaceMate /simulate.
Quick definitions (with the 2025 context)
What is an undercut in F1?
An undercut is pitting before a rival, then using the grip of fresh tyres (and ideally clean air) to set faster laps — so when the rival pits, they rejoin behind.
What is an overcut in F1?
An overcut is staying out longer than a rival, extracting extra pace on a lighter fuel load and/or when the rival’s out-lap is compromised (cold tyres, traffic, a messy release) — then pitting and still coming out ahead.
Why 2025 made this sharper
Two 2025-specific factors increased the cost of getting it wrong:
- The points fight was tight everywhere. Not just at the top — midfield swings mattered because clean air and track position dictate strategy options.
- No fastest lap bonus (from 2025 onwards). Teams had one less reason to “free stop” late for softs. More races ended with cars staying out to defend track position rather than chasing a point.
That second change is subtle, but brutal: fewer late “padding” stops means more long stints, which means more undercut/overcut pressure earlier, when the field is densest.
When the undercut actually worked in 2025
Undercuts worked best when three conditions aligned:
- High degradation or strong warm-up advantage on the new tyre
- A usable pit window (you can pit without rejoining into a train)
- A predictable delta (out-lap pace is real, not theoretical)
Here are the cleanest 2025 case studies.
Bahrain: when tyre surface eats your stint, the undercut becomes a default
Bahrain remains the purest “textbook” undercut track: abrasive surface, meaningful thermal deg, and enough overtaking to prevent everyone from simply parking.
In 2025, the race showed the undercut’s core mechanic in the most literal way: Lando Norris pitted early (Lap 11), served a penalty, dropped deep — and still used the fresh-tyre phase to climb back into the podium fight.
Why it worked (even with the penalty complication):
- Bahrain’s pit stop time loss is ~22.9s, which is significant — but not so high that it deletes the value of new-tyre lap time.
- The circuit tends to reward immediate lap time after the stop.
RaceMate takeaway: on Bahrain-like tracks, the undercut isn’t a “move”. It’s the moment you choose to start your next stint’s performance curve.
Imola: when passing is hard, pit timing becomes the overtake
Imola in 2025 was a strategy stress test: pit timing vs neutralisations.
Oscar Piastri stopped early (Lap 14) and the move didn’t land the way you’d want an undercut to land. The bigger story was that once the race flipped into VSC/SC phases, the “best” stop became the one that lost the least time — and Max Verstappen’s race turned into a control exercise from the front.
So did the undercut work? Briefly.
But Imola’s lesson is more useful than a yes/no:
- The undercut can be real, and still be the wrong play if the race’s probability curve (VSC/SC) is high.
- Imola’s pit stop time loss is ~28.2s — when pit loss is that high, you don’t just need lap time. You need timing luck.
If you want a deeper “finale-level” look at how timing windows decide outcomes, this is the same strategic logic we broke down in Abu Dhabi Decider: The Full Strategy Breakdown.
Monza: undercut as coverage, not as an attack
Monza isn’t a classic undercut venue because:
- It has long straights and big braking zones (passing is possible)
- Pit stop time loss is chunky (~24.3s)
Yet 2025 still produced a very modern undercut pattern: Verstappen pitted earlier than Norris/Piastri to protect track position and build margin.
That’s the “coverage undercut” — not trying to leapfrog, but trying to avoid being vulnerable.
RaceMate takeaway: at tracks where overtaking exists, the undercut shifts from attack tool to risk management tool.
When the undercut failed (and the overcut did the damage)
Undercuts fail for one reason, dressed up in ten different ways:
You pit for lap time, and you rejoin into someone else’s race.
Singapore: the overcut won because traffic punished the out-lap
Singapore in 2025 was the clearest overcut-friendly environment on the calendar:
- Pit stop time loss: ~29.1s (massive)
- Safety Car probability: ~83% (strategy volatility)
- Street circuit traffic that can ruin a “perfect” undercut in half a sector
The winning pattern wasn’t “pit early and go fast.” It was:
- Stay out until you can pit into clean air
- Avoid the one-lap warm-up/traffic trap
- Convert stable pace into position when stops cycle
If you want the Singapore-specific breakdown, including why clean-air laps beat theoretical tyre delta, go next: Singapore GP 2025: Race Winners & Losers.
Monaco: even a mandated two-stop couldn’t create an undercut economy
Monaco in 2025 tried to force strategy into relevance with a mandatory two-stop rule.
But Monaco’s true physics didn’t change:
- Pit stop time loss: ~19.4s (low)
- Overtaking is the problem, not pit cost
- The exit is narrow, and traffic is guaranteed
So what happened? The undercut was mostly reduced to a calendar obligation. You could stop earlier, sure — but if you rejoined behind a slower car, you simply donated your tyres to the DRS-less version of a train.
RaceMate takeaway: if a track makes track position absolute, then the undercut/overcut debate becomes secondary to release timing and who you get stuck behind.
The track traits that decide undercut vs overcut (the 2025 cheat sheet)
In 2025, these were the most reliable predictors of which “cut” would pay.
1) Pit lane time loss (the fixed cost)
Pit loss is your entry fee. In 2025, that fee varied wildly:
| Circuit (2025) | Pit stop time loss | Safety Car probability | What it tends to reward |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bahrain | ~22.9s | ~63% | Undercut (deg + warm-up) |
| Monaco | ~19.4s | ~43% | Neither (track position) |
| Hungary | ~20.6s | ~25% | Undercut, unless you can run long |
| Monza | ~24.3s | ~50% | Coverage undercut / track position |
| Singapore | ~29.1s | ~83% | Overcut (traffic + high pit loss) |
| Imola | ~28.2s | ~75% | Timing > theory (neutralisation risk) |
When pit loss is high, the bar for an undercut rises: you don’t just need faster laps — you need the rival’s out-lap to be compromised and your release to be clean.
2) Tyre warm-up profile (the hidden multiplier)
The undercut lives and dies on the out-lap.
- If the new tyre switches on quickly, an undercut gains immediate lap time.
- If warm-up is slow (or the driver exits into traffic), the out-lap becomes a liability — and the overcut gets paid.
3) Overtaking difficulty and DRS trains
A track can have “overtaking spots” and still be strategically closed.
If the midfield compresses into a DRS train, an undercut that rejoins P11 behind P12 behind P13 becomes a trap: you have fresh tyres, but you can’t use them.
That’s why the best strategy calls in 2025 often looked boring on paper:
- Extend.
- Create a gap.
- Pit when your out-lap has a purpose.
4) Safety Car and VSC probability (the volatility tax)
High SC/VSC probability doesn’t just change when you pit.
It changes whether you should commit to an undercut at all.
If a cheap stop is likely to appear, the “right” call can be to delay, keep options open, and avoid paying full pit loss.
The RaceMate “should we undercut?” checklist
Use this as a quick decision framework during a live race (or when you’re running scenarios in RaceMate /simulate):
- Clean air check: if we pit now, do we rejoin with at least 1–2 laps of usable clean air?
- Out-lap risk: are we likely to hit traffic, blue flags, or a cold-tyre sector that kills the delta?
- Deg curve: are we losing lap time right now (cliff approaching), or just feeling “slower”?
- Rival constraints: does the car ahead have to cover, or can they extend comfortably?
- Pit loss vs gain: is the expected gain bigger than the pit lane time loss plus the probability of a compromised out-lap?
- Neutralisation risk: is this a high-SC/VSC track where waiting can buy a discounted stop?
If you can’t answer the clean-air question with confidence, your undercut is probably just a nicely scheduled way to join the wrong queue.
Conclusion: in 2025, the best ‘cut’ was the one that bought usable lap time
The headline version of 2025 strategy is “undercut vs overcut.”
The real version is simpler and harsher:
- Undercuts worked when the out-lap had value. (Bahrain-style conditions, predictable tyre delta, space to use it.)
- Overcuts worked when the out-lap was compromised. (Singapore traffic, big pit loss, slow warm-up, or trains.)
- On track-position circuits, neither worked reliably. (Monaco proved that even rule changes can’t manufacture a real undercut economy.)
And because there’s no fastest lap bonus from 2025 onwards, teams spent less time chasing “extra” points and more time defending the points already in their pocket — which made track position, release timing, and stint length even more decisive.
Want to see how one successful undercut (or one failed one) reshapes the championship picture? Build your own alternate 2025 in RaceMate /simulate — and find out just how big the gaps really were.