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

McLaren are fully conscious of the challenge they encounter with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this year, but they don't believe to alter their strategy to running the team.

They will persist to give both drivers the optimal opportunity they can and run the team on a basis of fairness and balance.

"This represents the way we plan racing. This is the way in which we tackle racing, and we aim to stay fair, and we want to apply equal treatment to our drivers."

Team boss Stella is a seasoned expert of numerous championship fights. He won the championship as race engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari racer recovered seventeen points under the previous points system in two races to win the championship, while McLaren collapsed.

And he lost the title as engineer to Fernando Alonso in the 2010 season, when Ferrari made errors in their race strategy at the last Grand Prix of the championship and allowed Vettel and the Red Bull team to sneak the championship from their grasp.

Andrea Stella commented following the Grand Prix in Texas: "We look at the remaining five Grands Prix as chances to extend the gap on Verstappen. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a driver, this will exclusively be led by mathematics."

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

Why Did McLaren Cease Development on The Current Car?

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

In F1, it's typically the case that if a constructor gets it wrong at the beginning of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they succeed, that benefit can last for a while - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations changed.

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

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

The Red Bull team have closed the gap since introducing their new floor and front wing at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team boss Stella said he believed Lando Norris had the pace to compete for the victory in Texas had he not ended up behind Leclerc.

"We just have to keep optimising the performance and keep executing strong weekends. And from this perspective, if you think of a Grand Prix like Baku, we failed to optimize the car's potential and we didn't deliver a perfect race."

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

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

Initially, I'm not sure the inquiry has an entirely accurate basis. It's correct that each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly difficult first halves of the championship, in different ways, and that they are currently faring significantly improved.

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

Lewis Hamilton has failed to outperform Leclerc frequently at all this season, either in qualifying or race.

He is currently significantly nearer than he previously. He is regularly qualifying within a few hundredths of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying battles it's four-two to Leclerc since the summer break.

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite tracks, he was a second behind Leclerc when the Monaco driver completed his tire change, and dropped 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the race.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Nevertheless, over the season, and even now, it's difficult to claim that on balance 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 say even now that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is expecting the new rules next season will suit him; he has never really enjoyed these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a lot for a driver to understand and adapt to when they change constructors, as Hamilton has described many times this year. But not every driver faces difficulties in this manner.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was performing well from the start of the 2023 when he moved to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I suspect the majority in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know The Coming Season's Competitive Order?

Before the cars are driven for the initial time in winter testing next year, nobody will understand how the constructors are looking in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is private because the teams wanted to get their heads around their first running of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the media.

So the pair of sessions in Bahrain on 11-13 and February 18-20 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 situation will become clear.