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

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

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

"This represents the approach we intend racing. This remains the way in which we tackle racing, and we want to stay fair, and we intend to maintain equality to both drivers."

Team principal Stella is a seasoned expert of many title battles. He claimed the title as race engineer to Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari racer made up seventeen points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to win the title, while the McLaren team collapsed.

And he missed out on the title as race engineer to Alonso in the 2010 season, when Ferrari messed up their strategy at the last Grand Prix of the season and enabled Vettel and the Red Bull team to snatch the title from their grasp.

Stella commented following the race in Texas: "We look at the next five races as chances to extend the lead on Max. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a team driver, this will only be led by the numbers."

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

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

All teams this season have had to confront the conundrum 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 scheduled for the 2026 season.

In F1, it's usually the case that if a team makes mistakes at the start of a new regulation period, it can take a long time to catch up. And if they succeed, that benefit can continue for some time - look at Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules changed.

McLaren started this year with the fastest car, after putting a lot of innovation into their 2025 design.

They did continue to develop it for a while, but were experiencing reduced benefits. So when evaluating the value for money 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 bringing their updated underfloor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team principal Stella stated he thought Norris had the pace to compete for the win in Austin had he not finished following Charles Leclerc.

"We must continue maximising the car performance and keep executing strong weekends. And from this perspective, if you think of a Grand Prix like Baku City Circuit, we didn't maximise the car's potential and we didn't execute a perfect race."

"So definitely we have a significant chance, and the outcome of this championship and the driver's title is in our hands. It's not placed in another team's control."

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

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

Carlos Sainz and Albon do now look 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.

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

He is currently significantly nearer than he previously. He is regularly qualifying within a small fraction of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Charles Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This previous weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second slower than his teammate when the Monegasque made his tire change, and lost thirteen seconds over the rest of the race.

Looking back, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal strategy. Regardless, over the championship, and even now, it's difficult to claim that on balance Charles Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari driver this year.

Both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have discussed how challenging it is to switch teams, and we have to accept their statements.

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is expecting the new rules next year will suit him; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a great deal for a driver to get their head around when they switch teams, as Lewis Hamilton has described many times this season. But not all struggle in this manner.

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

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

Before the F1 cars are driven for the first time in winter testing next year, nobody will understand how the teams are looking next year.

The first test, in Barcelona on January 26-30, is private because the teams wanted to understand 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 18-20 February will be the initial occasion some kind of sense of relative performance emerges.

But, as ever, it's only at the first race that the complete and precise situation will become clear.