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

The McLaren team are fully conscious of the difficulty they confront with Verstappen and Red Bull in the championship battle this year, but they see no reason to change their method to running the team.

They will persist to give both drivers the optimal opportunity they can and run the team on a basis of equity and equanimity.

"This represents the way we intend racing. This remains the method in which we tackle competition, and we aim to stay fair, and we want to apply equal treatment to our drivers."

Team boss Stella is a seasoned expert of many championship fights. He won the championship as race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari driver made up 17 points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to win the championship, while the McLaren team collapsed.

And he lost the title as race engineer to Alonso in the 2010 season, when the Ferrari team messed up their strategy at the last Grand Prix of the championship and allowed Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull to sneak the title from their grasp.

Andrea Stella commented after the race in Austin: "We look at the next five races as chances to extend the lead on Verstappen. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a driver, this will exclusively be determined by the numbers."

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

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

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

In F1, it's usually the case that if a team gets it wrong at the beginning of a new regulation period, it can take a long time to recover. 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.

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

They continued to develop it for a while, but were finding reduced benefits. So when evaluating the bang for buck they were achieving on their 2025 car compared to 2026, it became an easy decision to switch focus to next year.

The Red Bull team have caught up since introducing their new floor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team boss Andrea Stella stated he believed Lando Norris had the speed to challenge for the win in Austin had he not ended up behind Charles Leclerc.

"We must keep optimising the performance and continue delivering good race weekends. And from this perspective, if you consider a race like Baku City Circuit, we failed to optimize the performance and we didn't execute a perfect performance."

"So definitely we have a large opportunity, and the outcome of this season and the drivers' championship is in our hands. It's not in someone else's hands."

Driver Transfers: How Challenging Is It to Switch Teams?

Initially, it's uncertain the question has an completely accurate premise. It's correct that each of Lewis Hamilton and Sainz had slightly sticky opening phases 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 "match" of Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

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

He is currently much closer than he was. He is consistently setting times within a few hundredths of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying battles it's 4-2 to Charles Leclerc since the summer break.

This last weekend in Texas, on one of Hamilton's favourite tracks, he was a second behind Leclerc when the Monegasque made his pit stop, and dropped thirteen seconds over the remaining portion of the race.

Looking back, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal strategy. Regardless, over the championship, and even currently, it's difficult to argue that on average Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari racer this year.

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

Hamilton would not claim even now that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is expecting the new rules next season will benefit his driving style; he has never really enjoyed 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 season. But not all struggle in this manner.

Alonso, for instance, 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 Formula 1 would expect not.

How Soon Can We Determine Next Year's Team Performance?

Before the cars are driven for the initial time in pre-season testing next season, no-one will understand how the teams are performing in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Barcelona on January 26-30, is behind closed doors because the teams wanted to understand 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 18-20 February will be the first time a certain sense of relative performance emerges.

But, as ever, it's not until the first race that the complete and precise situation will become clear.