This study proposes a coordinated control strategy to improve the safety, handling stability, riding comfort of the heavy-duty vehicle. The strategy is based on the coordination of direct yaw moment control (DYC) and anti-lock braking system. The model predictive control (MPC) method for DYC considering sideslip angle and yaw rate is presented. The sideslip angle and yaw rate are adopted to be the indicators for handling stability, constraints considering the maximal force of actuator are implemented in the MPC. The control scheme is examined on a non-linear three-directional coupled model in the environment of MATLAB/Simulink and TruckSim. The relationship between yaw moment and wheel slip ratio is obtained by the Dugoff model, which can be easily implemented in hardware-in-loop (HIL) tests. HIL tests are conducted to verify the improvement introduced by the coordinated control with MPC. Vehicle responses under various speeds and turning radii are analysed by comparison of proportional–integral control and MPC. The results specify that the proposed coordinated control scheme with MPC could obtain better lateral stability.