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Must McLaren Accept Reality of F1 - That if You Want Win, You Can't Always Be Fair?

The McLaren team are fully conscious of the difficulty they face with Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this season, but they don't believe to modify their strategy to managing the team.

They will continue to provide their two drivers the optimal opportunity they can and operate the team on a basis of fairness and equanimity.

"This is the approach we plan racing. This is the way in which we approach racing, and we want to stay fair, and we intend to maintain equality to both drivers."

Team principal Stella is a veteran of numerous championship fights. He claimed the title as engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari racer recovered seventeen points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to win the title, while the McLaren team collapsed.

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

Andrea Stella commented after the Grand Prix in Austin: "We look at the remaining five Grands Prix as opportunities to increase the gap on Max. And when it involves having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will exclusively be led by the numbers."

"We lean on the experience. I can recall at least 2007, the 2010 season, in which you reach the final Grand Prix and it's in fact the third-placed driver that claims the title. So we're not going to close the door unless this is determined by mathematics."

What Prompted McLaren to Cease Development on The Current Car?

Every team this year have had to confront the dilemma of how long to focus on their 2025 car while also ensuring they are as prepared as they can be for the significant regulation change coming for the 2026 season.

In F1, it's typically the situation that if a team makes mistakes at the beginning of a new regulation period, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they succeed, that benefit can continue for some time - consider the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations were modified.

McLaren started this season with the fastest car, after investing a lot of technical development into their 2025 design.

They continued to develop it for a period, but were finding diminishing returns. So when looking at the value for money they were getting on their 2025 season car compared to the 2026 car, it became an straightforward decision to switch focus to next year.

The Red Bull team have closed the gap since introducing their updated underfloor and front wing at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team boss Stella stated he thought Norris had the speed to compete for the victory in Austin had he not ended up following Leclerc.

"We just have to keep maximising the car performance and continue executing strong weekends. And from this point of view, if you think of a race like Baku City Circuit, we didn't maximise the car's potential and we didn't execute a flawless performance."

"So definitely we have a large opportunity, and the outcome of this championship and the driver's title is in our control. It's not placed in another team's control."

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

Initially, it's uncertain the question has an entirely correct basis. It's true that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat difficult first halves of the championship, in different ways, and that they are now performing significantly improved.

Sainz and Albon currently appear quite balanced. However, it's less certain that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is yet the "equal" of Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

Hamilton has failed to outperform Charles Leclerc very often at all this year, either in qualifying sessions or Grand Prix.

He is currently significantly nearer than he was. He is consistently setting times within a few hundredths of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying battles it's 4-2 to Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second behind his teammate when the Monegasque completed his pit stop, and dropped thirteen seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

Looking back, Charles Leclerc was on the best strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even currently, it's difficult to argue that on balance Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari racer this season.

Each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have talked about how challenging it is to switch teams, and we have to take them at their word.

Lewis Hamilton would not say even now that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is expecting the regulation changes next year will suit him; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a lot for a driver to get their head around when they switch teams, as Lewis Hamilton has explained many times this season. But not all struggle in this way.

Alonso, for example, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 when he transferred to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen face challenges if he switched teams? I suspect most in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know Next Year's Team Performance?

Until the cars run for the first time in winter testing next season, nobody will know how the teams are performing in the upcoming season.

The first test, in Catalunya on 26-30 January, is behind closed doors because the teams wanted to get their heads around their initial track time of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the media.

So the two tests in Bahrain on February 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the first time a certain indication of comparative speed becomes apparent.

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