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Do McLaren Accept Reality of F1 - That to Win, It's Not Always Possible to Play Fair?

McLaren are fully conscious of the obstacle they confront with Max Verstappen and Red Bull in the drivers' championship this season, but they don't believe to alter their method to running the team.

They will continue to give their two drivers the best chance they can and operate the team on a basis of equity and balance.

"This represents the approach we intend racing. This is the way in which we approach racing, and we aim to remain fair, and we intend to maintain equal treatment to our drivers."

Team principal Andrea Stella is a veteran of many championship fights. He claimed the title as engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver recovered seventeen points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to secure the championship, while McLaren imploded.

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

Andrea Stella stated after the race in Texas: "We view the remaining five Grands Prix as opportunities 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 remember at least 2007, 2010, in which you reach the last race and it's in fact the [driver in] third [place] that claims the championship. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is determined by the calculations."

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

Every team this year have had to face the dilemma of for how long to focus on their 2025 season car while also making sure they are as ready as they can be for the major rules overhaul scheduled for the 2026 season.

In F1, it's typically the situation that if a constructor makes mistakes at the start of a new regulation period, it can take a long time to catch up. And if they get it right, that advantage can continue for some time - consider the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules changed.

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

They continued to improve it for a while, but were experiencing reduced benefits. So when evaluating the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 car compared to 2026, it became an easy decision to switch focus to the following season.

The Red Bull team have closed the gap since bringing their new underfloor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren car remains competitive - team principal Andrea Stella stated he believed Lando Norris had the pace to challenge for the win in Texas had he not ended up behind Charles Leclerc.

"We must keep optimising the performance and continue delivering strong weekends. And from this point of view, if you consider a Grand Prix like Baku, we didn't maximise the performance and we didn't deliver a perfect performance."

"Therefore we have a large opportunity, and the result of this championship and the driver's title is in our hands. It's not placed in someone else's hands."

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

Initially, I'm not sure the inquiry has an completely accurate basis. It's true that each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly difficult opening phases of the season, in different ways, and that they are now performing much better.

Sainz and Alex Albon currently appear quite balanced. However, it's not so clear that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is yet the "match" of Leclerc - or not regularly, at least.

Lewis Hamilton has failed to outperform Charles Leclerc very often at all this season, either in qualifying or Grand Prix.

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

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second slower than Leclerc when the Monegasque made his pit stop, and lost 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even now, it's hard to claim that on average Leclerc has hasn't 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.

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even now that he was completely adjusted to the Ferrari car - and he is expecting 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 driver to get their head around when they change constructors, as Hamilton has described repeatedly this year. But not every driver struggle in this manner.

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

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

Before the cars run for the first time in winter testing next season, 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 constructors wanted to understand their first running of the new engines without the prying eyes of the media.

So the pair of sessions in Bahrain on February 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 only at the season opener that the complete and precise picture will become clear.