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

The McLaren team are well aware of the difficulty they confront with Verstappen and Red Bull in the championship battle this season, but they see no reason to change their strategy to running the team.

They will continue to give both drivers the best chance they can and operate the team on a foundation of fairness and balance.

"This represents the approach we intend competing. This remains the philosophy in which we approach racing, and we aim to remain equitable, and we intend to apply equal treatment to both drivers."

Team principal Stella is a seasoned expert of many title battles. He claimed the title as race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari racer made up seventeen points under the previous points system in two Grands Prix to secure the championship, while McLaren imploded.

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

Stella stated following the Grand Prix in Austin: "We view the remaining five Grands Prix as chances to increase the gap on Verstappen. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a team driver, this will exclusively be determined by mathematics."

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

What Prompted McLaren to Stop Upgrades on The Current Car?

All teams this year have had to face the dilemma of for how long to focus on their 2025 car while also making sure they are as ready as they can be for the significant regulation change coming for 2026.

In F1, it's usually the situation that if a team gets it wrong at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a long time to catch up. And if they get it right, that benefit can continue for some time - consider the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules changed.

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

They did continue to improve it for a while, but were finding diminishing returns. So when evaluating the bang for buck they were achieving on their 2025 season car versus the 2026 car, it became an easy choice to redirect attention to next year.

The Red Bull team have closed the gap since introducing their updated underfloor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team principal Stella said he believed Norris had the speed to compete for the victory in Texas had he not finished behind Charles Leclerc.

"We just have to keep optimising the performance and keep executing strong weekends. And from this point of view, if you consider a race like Baku City Circuit, we didn't maximise the performance and we didn't deliver a perfect race."

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

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, it's uncertain the question has an completely correct premise. It's correct that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly difficult first halves of the championship, in varying manners, and that they are now faring 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 Leclerc - or not consistently, at least.

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

He is currently much closer than he previously. He is regularly setting times within a small fraction of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying it's four-two to Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a full second slower than Leclerc when the Monegasque completed his tire change, and dropped thirteen seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the best strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even currently, it's difficult to argue that on average Charles Leclerc has not been the superior Ferrari driver 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.

Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the new rules next season will suit him; he has never really enjoyed these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a lot for a racing driver to get their head around when they change constructors, as Hamilton has described repeatedly this season. But not every driver faces difficulties in this manner.

Fernando Alonso, for example, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 season when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I suspect most in F1 would expect not.

How Soon Can We Determine The Coming Season's Team Performance?

Until the F1 cars run for the initial time in pre-season testing next year, no-one will understand how the constructors are performing in the upcoming season.

The first test, in Catalunya on 26-30 January, is behind closed doors because the constructors preferred to get their heads around their first running of the new engines without the prying eyes of the press.

So the pair of sessions in Sakhir on 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the initial occasion some kind of indication of relative performance emerges.

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