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Do McLaren Face the Truth of F1 - That to Win, You Can't Always Play Fair?

McLaren are fully conscious of the challenge they confront with Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this year, but they don't believe to modify their method to managing the team.

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

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

Team boss Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of numerous championship fights. He won the championship as engineer to Kimi 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 race engineer to Alonso in 2010, when the Ferrari team messed up their race strategy at the last Grand Prix of the season and allowed Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull to sneak the title from their grasp.

Stella stated after the Grand Prix in Texas: "We look at the next five races as chances to increase the gap on Max. And when it comes to having to make a decision as to a driver, this will only be determined by the numbers."

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

What Prompted McLaren to Stop Development on The Current Car?

Every team this season have had to confront the conundrum of how long to focus on their 2025 car while also making sure they are as prepared as they can be for the major regulation change scheduled for the 2026 season.

In Formula 1, it's usually the situation 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 last for a while - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations changed.

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

They did continue to develop it for a period, but were finding diminishing returns. So when looking at the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 car compared to the 2026 car, it became an straightforward decision to redirect attention to next year.

The Red Bull team have caught up since bringing their updated underfloor and front wing at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren car remains competitive - team boss Stella said he thought Norris had the pace to compete for the victory in Austin had he not ended up behind Leclerc.

"We must continue optimising the car performance and keep executing good weekends. And from this perspective, if you think of a race like Baku, we didn't maximise the car's potential and we didn't execute a flawless race."

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

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

Initially, I'm not sure the inquiry has an entirely correct premise. It's correct that each of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky first halves of the season, in different ways, and that they are currently performing significantly improved.

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

Hamilton has not beaten Charles Leclerc frequently at all this year, either in qualifying or race.

He is now much closer than he was. He is consistently setting times 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 last weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite circuits, he was a full second behind Leclerc when the Monegasque completed his tire change, and dropped 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even currently, it's difficult to argue that on balance Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari driver this year.

Each of Hamilton and 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 the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the new rules next season will benefit his driving style; he has never particularly liked these venturi cars.

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

Alonso, for example, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 when he transferred to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he switched teams? I suspect most in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know The Coming Season's Competitive Order?

Until the F1 cars run for the initial time in winter testing next season, nobody will understand how the teams are looking in the upcoming season.

The first test, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is private because the constructors wanted to get their heads around their initial track time of the power unit changes without the scrutiny of the media.

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

But, as ever, it's not until the first race that the true and accurate picture will emerge.