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

The McLaren team are well aware of the challenge they confront with Max Verstappen and Red Bull in the championship battle this year, but they see no reason to change their approach to running the team.

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

"This is the way we intend racing. This remains the method in which we approach competition, and we want to remain fair, and we intend to apply equal treatment to our drivers."

Team principal Stella is a veteran of many championship fights. He won the championship as race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari driver recovered seventeen points under the old scoring system in two races to secure the championship, while the McLaren team imploded.

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

Andrea Stella commented after the Grand Prix in Texas: "We look at 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 only be led by the numbers."

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

Why Did McLaren Cease Development on The Current Car?

Every team this year 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 regulation change coming for the 2026 season.

In Formula 1, it's typically the situation 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 succeed, that benefit can last for a while - look at Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules were modified.

The McLaren team started this year with the best car, after putting a lot of innovation into their 2025 season design.

They continued to improve it for a while, but were finding diminishing returns. So when looking at the value for money they were getting on their 2025 season car compared to the 2026 car, it became an easy choice to redirect attention to next year.

Red Bull have caught up since bringing their updated floor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team boss Stella said he believed Lando Norris had the pace to compete for the victory in Texas had he not finished following Charles Leclerc.

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

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

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, I'm not sure the question has an entirely correct premise. It's correct that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly difficult opening phases of the championship, in different ways, and that they are now faring significantly improved.

Sainz and Albon do now look very even. However, it's not so clear that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is currently the "equal" of Leclerc - or not consistently, anyway.

Hamilton has not beaten Charles Leclerc very often at all this year, either in qualifying or Grand Prix.

He is now much closer than he was. He is regularly 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 mid-season break.

This last weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite circuits, he was a second slower than his teammate when the Monaco driver made his pit stop, and dropped thirteen seconds over the rest of the race.

In hindsight, Leclerc was on the best strategy. Regardless, over the championship, and even now, it's hard to claim that on average Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari racer this year.

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

Lewis Hamilton would not say even now that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the new rules next year will benefit his driving style; he has never really enjoyed these venturi cars.

There is a great deal for a driver to get their head around when they change constructors, as Lewis Hamilton has explained many times this year. But not all struggle in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 when he transferred to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen face challenges if he switched teams? I believe most in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

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

Until the F1 cars run for the first time in pre-season testing next year, nobody will know how the teams are looking next year.

The first test, in Catalunya on 26-30 January, is private because the constructors wanted to get their heads around their initial track time of the new engines without the prying eyes of the media.

So the two tests in Sakhir on 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the first time a certain sense of relative performance becomes apparent.

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