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

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

They will continue to give their two drivers the best chance they can and run the team on a foundation of fairness and equanimity.

"This is the manner we plan competing. This is the way in which we tackle competition, and we want to stay fair, and we want to apply equality to both drivers."

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

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

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

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

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

Every team this season 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 major rules overhaul scheduled for 2026.

In Formula 1, it's usually the case that if a constructor gets it wrong at the beginning of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to catch up. And if they get it right, that benefit can continue for some time - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules were modified.

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

They did continue 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 versus the 2026 car, it became an straightforward choice to redirect attention to the following season.

The Red Bull team have caught up since bringing their updated underfloor and front wing at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team principal Stella said he believed Lando Norris had the pace to challenge for the win in Austin had he not finished following Charles Leclerc.

"We just have to keep maximising the performance and continue delivering strong race weekends. And from this point of view, if you think of a Grand Prix like Baku, we didn't maximise the car's potential and we didn't execute a flawless race."

"So definitely 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."

Driver Transfers: How Challenging Is It to Switch Teams?

Initially, I'm not sure the inquiry has an completely correct premise. It's correct that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat sticky opening phases of the championship, in varying manners, and that they are currently faring significantly improved.

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

Lewis Hamilton has not beaten Leclerc frequently at all this season, either in qualifying sessions or race.

He is currently significantly nearer than he was. He is consistently 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 Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite circuits, he was a full second behind Leclerc when the Monegasque completed his tire change, and lost 13 seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

Looking back, Charles Leclerc was on the best strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even currently, it's hard to claim that on average Charles Leclerc has not been the superior Ferrari racer this season.

Each of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have talked about how difficult it is to change constructors, and we have to take them at their word.

Hamilton would not say even currently that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the new rules next season will benefit his driving style; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a great deal for a racing driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Hamilton has described repeatedly this year. But not every driver faces difficulties in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for example, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 when he transferred to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I believe the majority in Formula 1 would expect not.

How Soon Can We Determine Next Year's Competitive Order?

Before the F1 cars are driven for the initial time in pre-season testing next year, nobody will know how the constructors are looking next year.

The initial session, in Barcelona on 26-30 January, 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 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the first time some kind of sense of comparative speed emerges.

But, as ever, it's only at the first race that the true and accurate situation will emerge.