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Do McLaren Accept Reality of F1 - That to Win, You Can't Always Be Fair?

McLaren are well aware of the challenge they encounter with Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this year, but they see no reason to modify their strategy to running the team.

They will persist to give both drivers the best chance they can and run the team on a basis of equity and equanimity.

"This is the approach we intend racing. This remains the philosophy in which we tackle competition, and we aim to stay fair, and we intend to maintain equality to our drivers."

Team boss Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of many championship fights. He won the championship as engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari driver made up seventeen points under the old scoring system in two races to secure the title, while the McLaren team imploded.

And he missed out on the title as engineer to Fernando Alonso in the 2010 season, when the Ferrari team made errors in their race strategy at the final race of the season and enabled Vettel and the Red Bull team to snatch the title from under their noses.

Stella stated after the Grand Prix in Texas: "We look at the next five races as opportunities to extend the gap on Verstappen. And when it comes to having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will exclusively be led by the numbers."

"We rely on the experience. I can remember at least the 2007 season, 2010, in which you reach the final Grand Prix and it's in fact the [driver in] third [place] that wins the title. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is determined by mathematics."

What Prompted McLaren to Cease Development on This Year's Car?

Every team this season have had to face the conundrum of for how long to focus on their 2025 season car while also making sure they are as prepared as they can be for the significant rules overhaul scheduled for 2026.

In Formula 1, it's typically the case that if a team makes mistakes at the beginning of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they succeed, that advantage can continue for some time - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules were modified.

McLaren started this season with the best car, after putting a lot of innovation into their 2025 design.

They did continue to develop it for a period, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when evaluating the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 season car compared to the 2026 car, it became an straightforward choice to switch focus to the following season.

Red Bull have caught up since introducing their new floor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team principal Stella stated he thought Lando Norris had the pace to compete for the win in Austin had he not ended up behind Charles Leclerc.

"We must keep maximising the car performance and continue executing good race weekends. And from this point of view, if you consider a race like Baku, we didn't maximise the performance and we didn't deliver a perfect race."

"So definitely we have a large opportunity, and the result of this championship and the driver's title is in our control. It's not in someone else's hands."

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, it's uncertain the inquiry has an completely correct basis. It's correct that each of Hamilton and Sainz had somewhat sticky first halves of the season, in varying manners, and that they are now performing significantly improved.

Carlos Sainz and Albon do now look very even. However, it's less certain that, in Hamilton's case, he is currently the "equal" of Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

Hamilton has not beaten Charles Leclerc very often at all this year, either in qualifying sessions or race.

He is currently significantly nearer than he was. He is regularly qualifying within a few hundredths of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying battles it's four-two to Charles Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This last weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred circuits, he was a second behind his teammate when the Monegasque completed his pit stop, and lost thirteen seconds over the rest of the race.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even currently, it's hard to claim that on average Leclerc has not been the superior Ferrari racer this season.

Each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have talked about how challenging it is to change constructors, and we have to accept their statements.

Hamilton would not say even currently that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the regulation changes next year will benefit his driving style; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a great deal for a driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Hamilton has described many times this year. But not all faces difficulties in this way.

Alonso, for instance, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 season when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he switched teams? I suspect the majority in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know Next Year's Competitive Order?

Until the F1 cars run for the first time in winter testing next year, no-one will understand how the teams are looking next year.

The initial session, in Barcelona on 26-30 January, is private because the constructors preferred to understand their initial track time of the new engines without the scrutiny of the press.

So the pair of sessions in Bahrain on 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the initial occasion a certain sense of relative performance emerges.

But, as ever, it's only at the first race that the true and accurate situation will emerge.