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

The McLaren team are fully conscious of the obstacle they encounter with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this year, but they don't believe to change their approach to running the team.

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

"This represents the approach we intend competing. This is the method in which we tackle competition, and we aim to remain equitable, and we want to maintain equal treatment to our drivers."

Team principal Stella is a veteran of many title battles. He claimed 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 win the championship, while the McLaren team imploded.

And he missed out on the championship as engineer to Alonso in the 2010 season, when the Ferrari team made errors in their race strategy at the final race of the season and allowed Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull to sneak the championship from their grasp.

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

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

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

All teams this year have had to face the conundrum 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 rules overhaul scheduled for the 2026 season.

In F1, it's typically the case that if a team makes mistakes at the beginning of a new rules cycle, it can take a long time to recover. And if they get it right, that benefit can last for a while - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules changed.

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

They did continue to improve it for a period, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when evaluating the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 season car compared to the 2026 car, it became an straightforward decision to redirect attention to the following season.

The Red Bull team have closed the gap since introducing their new underfloor and front wing at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team principal Stella stated he believed Lando Norris had the pace to compete for the win in Texas had he not finished behind Leclerc.

"We just have to continue maximising the car performance and continue executing strong weekends. And from this point of view, if you think of a race like Baku, we didn't maximise the performance and we didn't execute a perfect performance."

"So definitely we have a large opportunity, and the result of this season and the driver's title is in our hands. It's not placed in another team's control."

Team Changes: How Challenging Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, I'm not sure the inquiry has an completely accurate premise. It's true that both Lewis Hamilton and Sainz had somewhat sticky first halves of the season, in varying manners, and that they are now performing significantly improved.

Sainz and Alex Albon currently appear quite balanced. However, it's less certain that, in Hamilton's case, he is currently the "equal" of Charles Leclerc - or not regularly, at least.

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

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 four-two to Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's preferred circuits, he was a second behind his teammate when the Monaco driver completed his tire change, and lost thirteen seconds over the rest of the race.

In hindsight, Leclerc was on the optimal strategy. Nevertheless, over the season, and even currently, it's difficult to claim that on balance Charles Leclerc has not been the superior Ferrari racer this season.

Both 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 claim even now that he was completely adjusted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the regulation changes next year will suit him; 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 all struggle in this manner.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was performing well from the start of the 2023 season when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he switched teams? I believe the majority in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know Next Year's Team Performance?

Before the F1 cars are driven for the first time in winter testing next season, no-one will understand how the teams are looking in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is behind closed doors because the teams wanted to get their heads around their first running of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the press.

So the two tests in Sakhir on February 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the initial occasion a certain sense of comparative speed becomes apparent.

But, as ever, it's only at the first race that the complete and precise situation will emerge.