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

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

They will persist to provide their two drivers the optimal opportunity they can and run the team on a foundation of fairness and balance.

"This represents the manner we intend competing. This is the way in which we approach competition, and we aim to stay equitable, and we want to apply equal treatment to both drivers."

Team boss Andrea Stella is a veteran of many championship fights. He won the championship as engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari racer recovered 17 points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to secure the title, while McLaren imploded.

And he lost the title as race engineer to Alonso in the 2010 season, when Ferrari messed up their race strategy at the last Grand Prix of the season and allowed Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull to sneak the title from under their noses.

Andrea Stella commented following the Grand Prix in Austin: "We look at the next five races as opportunities to extend the gap on Verstappen. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a team driver, this will only be led by mathematics."

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

Why Did McLaren Cease Development on This Year's Car?

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

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

The McLaren team began this season with the best car, after investing a lot of technical development into their 2025 design.

They continued to improve it for a while, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when evaluating the value for money they were getting on their 2025 season car compared to 2026, it became an straightforward decision to switch focus to the following season.

Red Bull have caught up since introducing their new underfloor and front wing at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team principal Andrea Stella stated he thought Lando Norris had the speed to compete for the victory in Texas had he not finished following Charles Leclerc.

"We must continue maximising the car performance and keep delivering strong race weekends. And from this perspective, if you think of a race like Baku City Circuit, we failed to optimize the performance and we didn't execute a flawless performance."

"Therefore we have a large chance, and the result of this season and the drivers' championship is in our control. It's not in another team's control."

Team Changes: How Challenging Is It to Change Constructors?

Initially, I'm not sure the inquiry has an completely correct basis. It's correct that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky first halves of the championship, in different ways, and that they are currently performing much better.

Carlos Sainz and Albon do now appear quite balanced. However, it's not so clear that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is currently the "match" of Charles Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

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

He is currently much closer than he previously. He is consistently qualifying within a few hundredths of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Leclerc since the summer break.

This last weekend in Texas, on one of Hamilton's favourite circuits, he was a second behind Leclerc when the Monaco driver completed his pit stop, and dropped 13 seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Nevertheless, over the season, and even currently, it's difficult to claim that on balance Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari racer this year.

Both Lewis Hamilton and Sainz have discussed how challenging it is to change constructors, and we have to take them at their word.

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was completely adjusted to Ferrari - and he is expecting the new rules next season will suit him; he has never really enjoyed these venturi cars.

There is a lot for a driver to understand and adapt to when they change constructors, as Lewis Hamilton has described repeatedly this year. But not every driver struggle in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for example, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 when he moved to Aston Martin. And would Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I suspect the majority in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know The Coming Season's Team Performance?

Until the F1 cars are driven for the first time in winter testing next year, no-one will know how the teams are looking in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Barcelona on January 26-30, is private because the constructors wanted to get their heads around their initial track time of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the press.

So the two tests in Sakhir on February 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 season opener that the complete and precise picture will emerge.