diff --git a/.gitlab-ci/crosvm-runner.sh b/.gitlab-ci/crosvm-runner.sh
index e345b3b99c9..38e8cd16480 100755
--- a/.gitlab-ci/crosvm-runner.sh
+++ b/.gitlab-ci/crosvm-runner.sh
@@ -2,6 +2,16 @@
 # shellcheck disable=SC2086 # we want word splitting
 set -e
 
+# Instead of starting one dEQP instance per available CPU core, pour our
+# concurrency at llvmpipe threads instead. This is mostly useful for VirGL and
+# Venus, which serialise quite a bit at the host level. So instead of smashing
+# it with a pile of concurrent jobs which don't actually parallelise very well,
+# we use that concurrency for llvmpipe/lavapipe's render pipeline.
+if [ -n "${PARALLELISE_VIA_LP_THREADS:-}" ]; then
+    export LP_NUM_THREADS="${FDO_CI_CONCURRENT:-4}"
+    export FDO_CI_CONCURRENT=1
+fi
+
 # If run outside of a deqp-runner invoction (e.g. piglit trace replay), then act
 # the same as the first thread in its threadpool.
 THREAD=${DEQP_RUNNER_THREAD:-0}
diff --git a/src/gallium/drivers/virgl/ci/gitlab-ci-inc.yml b/src/gallium/drivers/virgl/ci/gitlab-ci-inc.yml
index 85ba5b85b3f..f6e8acec012 100644
--- a/src/gallium/drivers/virgl/ci/gitlab-ci-inc.yml
+++ b/src/gallium/drivers/virgl/ci/gitlab-ci-inc.yml
@@ -71,7 +71,8 @@
   variables:
     HWCI_KERNEL_MODULES: vhost_vsock
     HWCI_KVM: "true"
-    HWCI_TEST_SCRIPT: "LP_NUM_THREADS=${FDO_CI_CONCURRENT} FDO_CI_CONCURRENT=1 /install/crosvm-runner.sh /install/piglit/piglit-traces.sh"
+    HWCI_TEST_SCRIPT: "/install/crosvm-runner.sh /install/piglit/piglit-traces.sh"
+    PARALLELISE_VIA_LP_THREADS: 1
     GPU_VERSION: virgl
     DRIVER_NAME: virgl
     GALLIUM_DRIVER: virgl