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

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

They will persist to provide both drivers the best chance they can and operate the team on a foundation of fairness and balance.

"This is the manner we intend racing. This is the philosophy in which we approach competition, and we want to stay equitable, and we intend to maintain equal treatment to our drivers."

Team principal Stella is a veteran of many title battles. He won the title as race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver made up 17 points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to win the title, while the McLaren team imploded.

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

Stella commented following the race in Austin: "We look at the next five races as opportunities to increase the lead on Max. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a team driver, this will exclusively be determined by mathematics."

"We lean on the past experience. I can recall 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 championship. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is closed by the calculations."

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

Every team this year have had to face the dilemma of for how long to focus on their 2025 car while also ensuring they are as prepared as they can be for the significant regulation change scheduled for 2026.

In Formula 1, it's typically the situation that if a constructor makes mistakes at the beginning of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they succeed, that advantage can last for a while - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations changed.

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

They did continue to improve it for a period, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when evaluating the bang for buck they were achieving on their 2025 season car versus the 2026 car, it became an easy choice to switch focus to next year.

Red Bull have closed the gap since introducing their updated floor and front wing at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team boss Andrea Stella stated he believed Lando Norris had the pace to compete for the victory in Austin had he not ended up following Charles Leclerc.

"We just have to continue optimising the car performance and keep 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 deliver a flawless race."

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

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

Initially, it's uncertain the inquiry has an completely correct premise. It's true that each of Lewis Hamilton and Sainz had slightly sticky opening phases of the championship, in varying manners, and that they are now performing much better.

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

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

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

This last weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a full second behind Leclerc when the Monegasque completed his pit stop, and lost thirteen seconds over the remaining portion of the race.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the best strategy. Regardless, over the championship, and even currently, it's difficult to argue that on average Charles Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari driver this season.

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

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even now that he was completely adjusted to the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the new rules next year will benefit his driving style; he has never particularly liked these venturi cars.

There is a lot for a driver to understand and adapt to when they change constructors, as Lewis Hamilton has explained many times this season. But not every driver faces difficulties in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for example, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 season when he transferred to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I suspect most in Formula 1 would expect not.

When Will We Know Next Year's Team Performance?

Before the cars are driven for the initial time in winter testing next year, no-one will understand how the constructors are looking next year.

The first test, in Catalunya on 26-30 January, is behind closed doors because the constructors wanted to understand their first running of the power unit changes 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 some kind of indication of relative performance emerges.

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