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Do McLaren Face the Truth of F1 - That to Win, It's Not Always Possible to Play Fair?

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

They will continue to give both drivers the optimal opportunity they can and run the team on a basis of equity and equanimity.

"This is the manner we plan competing. This is the way in which we tackle racing, and we want to remain fair, and we want to maintain equal treatment to our drivers."

Team principal Stella is a seasoned expert of many championship fights. He claimed the title as engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari racer made up 17 points under the previous points system in two Grands Prix to win the championship, while McLaren collapsed.

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

Stella said following the Grand Prix in Austin: "We view the next five races as chances to increase the lead on Max. And when it involves having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will only be led by the numbers."

"We lean on the experience. I can recall at least 2007, 2010, in which you go to the final Grand Prix and it's in fact the third-placed driver that wins the title. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is closed by mathematics."

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

All teams this year have had to confront the dilemma of for how long to concentrate on their 2025 season car while also making sure they are as ready as they can be for the major rules overhaul coming for the 2026 season.

In Formula 1, it's typically the situation that if a team gets it wrong at the start of a new regulation period, it can take a long time to catch up. And if they succeed, that advantage can continue for some time - look at Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules changed.

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

They did continue to develop it for a period, but were finding diminishing returns. So when looking at the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 season car compared to the 2026 car, it became an easy choice to redirect attention to the following season.

Red Bull have caught up since bringing their new underfloor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team boss Andrea Stella said he believed Lando Norris had the speed to challenge for the win in Austin had he not finished behind Charles Leclerc.

"We just have to keep optimising the performance and keep delivering good weekends. And from this perspective, if you consider a Grand Prix like Baku, we failed to optimize the car's potential and we didn't execute a perfect race."

"So definitely we have a significant chance, and the result of this season and the driver's title is in our hands. It's not in someone else's hands."

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

Initially, it's uncertain the inquiry has an entirely accurate premise. It's correct that each of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat difficult first halves of the season, in different ways, and that they are currently performing much better.

Sainz and Albon currently appear quite balanced. However, it's not so clear that, in Hamilton's case, he is currently the "equal" of Charles Leclerc - or not regularly, at least.

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 was. He is consistently qualifying within a few hundredths of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Charles Leclerc since the mid-season break.

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

In hindsight, Leclerc was on the optimal strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even currently, it's difficult to argue that on average Charles Leclerc has hasn't been the better Ferrari racer this season.

Both Hamilton and Sainz have discussed how challenging it is to change constructors, and we have to accept their statements.

Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is expecting the regulation changes next year will suit him; he has never really enjoyed these venturi cars.

There is a great deal for a racing driver to get their head around when they change constructors, as Lewis Hamilton has described many times this year. But not all struggle in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for example, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 season when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Max Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I suspect the majority in Formula 1 would expect not.

When Will We Know Next Year's Team Performance?

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

The first test, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is private because the teams wanted to understand their initial track time of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the media.

So the pair of sessions in Bahrain on February 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the initial occasion some kind of sense of relative performance becomes apparent.

But, as ever, it's not until the first race that the complete and precise picture will emerge.