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

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

They will continue to give their two drivers the optimal opportunity they can and run the team on a basis of fairness and equanimity.

"This is the approach we plan competing. This remains the philosophy in which we tackle competition, and we want to remain equitable, and we intend to maintain equal treatment to both drivers."

Team principal Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of many championship fights. He claimed the championship as engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari racer made up seventeen points under the old scoring system in two races to win the title, while the McLaren team collapsed.

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

Andrea Stella said following the race in Austin: "We look at the remaining five Grands Prix as chances to extend the lead on Verstappen. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a team driver, this will exclusively be determined by the numbers."

"We lean on the past experience. I can recall 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 closed by mathematics."

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

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

In F1, it's typically the case that if a team gets it wrong at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to catch up. And if they get it right, that advantage can last for a while - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the last time the regulations were modified.

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

They continued to develop it for a period, but were finding diminishing returns. So when looking at the bang for buck they were achieving on their 2025 car compared to the 2026 car, it became an easy choice to switch focus to next year.

Red Bull have closed the gap since bringing their updated underfloor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team boss Andrea Stella said he thought Norris had the pace to challenge for the victory in Texas had he not ended up behind Charles Leclerc.

"We must continue maximising the performance and keep executing good weekends. And from this point of view, if you think of a Grand Prix like Baku City Circuit, we didn't maximise the car's potential and we didn't execute a perfect performance."

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

Driver Transfers: How Challenging Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, it's uncertain the inquiry has an completely accurate premise. It's true that each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky opening phases of the season, in varying manners, and that they are now faring significantly improved.

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

Hamilton has failed to outperform Leclerc frequently at all this season, either in qualifying or race.

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

This last weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second slower than his teammate when the Monegasque completed his pit stop, and dropped 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the race.

In hindsight, Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Regardless, over the season, and even now, it's hard to argue that on balance Charles Leclerc has not been the superior Ferrari racer this season.

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

Hamilton would not say even now that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the new rules next year 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 change constructors, as Lewis Hamilton has explained repeatedly this season. But not every driver struggle in this way.

Alonso, for instance, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I believe most in Formula 1 would expect not.

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

Until the cars run for the initial time in pre-season testing next year, nobody will understand how the constructors are performing next year.

The first test, in Barcelona on 26-30 January, is private because the constructors preferred to get their heads around their first running of the new engines without the prying eyes of the media.

So the two tests in Bahrain on 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the initial occasion 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.