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

McLaren are well aware of the difficulty they face with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this season, but they see no reason to modify their approach to managing the team.

They will persist to provide both drivers the optimal opportunity they can and run the team on a basis of fairness and balance.

"This represents the manner we intend competing. This is the way in which we approach competition, and we aim to remain fair, and we want to apply equal treatment to both drivers."

Team boss Stella is a seasoned expert of numerous title battles. He won the title as race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver recovered seventeen points under the old scoring system in two races to win the championship, while the McLaren team collapsed.

And he lost the title as engineer to Fernando Alonso in the 2010 season, when the Ferrari team made errors in their race strategy at the final race of the season and enabled Sebastian Vettel and the Red Bull team to snatch the title from their grasp.

Stella commented following the race in Texas: "We view the next five races as chances to increase the lead on Max. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a driver, this will only be led by the numbers."

"We rely on the past experience. I can remember at least 2007, 2010, in which you go to the last race and it's in fact the [driver in] third [place] that claims the title. So we're not going to close the door unless this is determined by the calculations."

Why Did McLaren Stop Development on The Current Car?

All teams this season have had to face the conundrum of how long to concentrate on their 2025 car while also ensuring they are as ready 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 long time to catch up. And if they succeed, that advantage can last for a while - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules changed.

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

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

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

"We just have to keep optimising the performance and continue delivering strong weekends. And from this perspective, if you consider a Grand Prix like Baku, we failed to optimize the car's potential and we didn't execute a flawless performance."

"Therefore we have a significant opportunity, and the outcome of this season and the driver's title is in our hands. It's not placed in another team's control."

Driver Transfers: How Challenging Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, I'm not sure the inquiry has an completely correct basis. It's correct that each of Lewis Hamilton and Sainz had slightly difficult opening phases of the championship, in different ways, and that they are now performing significantly improved.

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

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

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

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

Looking back, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even now, it's hard to argue that on average Charles Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari racer this year.

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

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was completely adjusted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the regulation changes next season will benefit his driving style; he has never really enjoyed these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a lot for a racing driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Lewis Hamilton has described many times this year. But not all struggle in this manner.

Alonso, for instance, was on it from the start of the 2023 season when he moved to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen face challenges if he switched teams? I suspect the majority in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

How Soon Can We Determine The Coming Season's Competitive Order?

Until the F1 cars run for the initial time in pre-season testing next season, nobody will know how the constructors are performing next year.

The initial session, in Catalunya on 26-30 January, is private because the teams preferred to get their heads around their initial track time of the new engines without the scrutiny of the media.

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

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