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Do McLaren Face the Truth of F1 - That if You Want Win, You Can't Always Be Fair?

McLaren are fully conscious of the difficulty they confront with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this year, but they see no reason to change their strategy to managing the team.

They will persist to provide both drivers the best chance they can and operate the team on a basis of fairness and equanimity.

"This is the manner we intend racing. This is the way in which we tackle competition, and we want to remain equitable, and we intend to maintain equality to both drivers."

Team principal Stella is a seasoned expert of numerous championship fights. He claimed the championship as engineer to Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari racer recovered seventeen points under the old scoring system in two races to secure the championship, while McLaren collapsed.

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

Stella commented following the Grand Prix in Texas: "We view the next five races as opportunities to increase the gap on Max. And when it comes to having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will exclusively be determined by the numbers."

"We lean on the past experience. I can remember at least the 2007 season, the 2010 season, in which you go to the last race and it's in fact the third-placed driver that wins the championship. So we're not going to close the door unless this is closed by the calculations."

Why Did McLaren Stop Upgrades on This Year's Car?

All teams this season have had to confront the conundrum of for how long to focus on their 2025 season car while also ensuring they are as ready as they can be for the major regulation change coming for the 2026 season.

In Formula 1, it's usually the case that if a constructor gets it wrong at the start of a new regulation period, it can take a considerable period to catch up. And if they get it right, that advantage can continue for some time - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules changed.

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

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

The Red Bull team have caught up since bringing their new underfloor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team boss Stella stated he believed Lando Norris had the pace to compete for the win in Austin had he not finished following Leclerc.

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

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

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

Initially, it's uncertain the inquiry has an completely accurate premise. It's correct that both Lewis Hamilton and Sainz had somewhat sticky opening phases of the season, in different ways, and that they are currently performing much better.

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

Hamilton has not beaten Charles Leclerc frequently at all this season, either in qualifying sessions or Grand Prix.

He is now significantly nearer than he was. He is consistently qualifying within a small fraction of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying it's four-two to Charles Leclerc since the summer break.

This last weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite tracks, he was a full second slower than Leclerc when the Monegasque completed his pit stop, and dropped 13 seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

Looking back, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Regardless, over the championship, and even now, it's hard to claim that on balance Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari driver this year.

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

Hamilton would not claim 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 great deal for a driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Lewis Hamilton has explained repeatedly this season. But not every driver struggle in this way.

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

How Soon Can We Determine The Coming Season's Competitive Order?

Until the cars run for the initial time in winter testing next year, no-one will understand how the constructors are looking in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is behind closed doors because the teams wanted to understand their initial track time of the new engines without the scrutiny of the press.

So the pair of sessions in Sakhir on 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the first time a certain sense of comparative speed emerges.

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