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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 confront with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this season, but they don't believe 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 basis of equity and equanimity.

"This represents the manner we plan competing. This remains the method in which we tackle racing, and we want to remain fair, and we want to maintain equality to both drivers."

Team boss Stella is a veteran of numerous championship fights. He claimed the championship as race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari racer recovered 17 points under the previous points system in two Grands Prix to win the title, while the McLaren team imploded.

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

Stella stated after the Grand Prix in Texas: "We look at the remaining five Grands Prix as opportunities to increase the lead on Verstappen. And when it involves having to make a decision as to a driver, this will only be determined by mathematics."

"We rely on the past experience. I can remember at least 2007, 2010, in which you reach 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 mathematics."

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

Every team this year have had to confront the conundrum of how long to focus on their 2025 car while also ensuring they are as prepared as they can be for the significant rules overhaul scheduled for the 2026 season.

In Formula 1, it's typically the case that if a constructor makes mistakes at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a long time to recover. And if they succeed, that benefit can last for a while - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules changed.

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

They did continue to improve it for a while, but were finding diminishing returns. So when evaluating the bang for buck they were getting on their 2025 season car versus 2026, it became an straightforward decision to redirect attention to the following season.

Red Bull have caught up since bringing their updated underfloor and front wing at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team boss Stella said he believed Lando Norris had the pace to compete for the win in Texas had he not finished following Leclerc.

"We just have to keep maximising the performance and keep executing strong race weekends. And from this point of view, if you consider a Grand Prix like Baku, we didn't maximise the performance and we didn't execute a flawless race."

"Therefore we have a large chance, and the result of this season and the drivers' championship is in our hands. It's not in another team's control."

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, it's uncertain the inquiry has an entirely correct premise. It's correct that both Hamilton and Sainz had somewhat sticky opening phases of the championship, in varying manners, and that they are currently faring much better.

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

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

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

This last weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second slower than his teammate when the Monaco driver made his tire change, and lost 13 seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the best strategy. Regardless, over the season, and even now, it's difficult to argue that on average Charles Leclerc has hasn't been the better Ferrari racer this season.

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

Lewis Hamilton would not say even currently that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is expecting the new rules next season will suit him; he has never really enjoyed these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a great deal for a racing driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Lewis Hamilton has described repeatedly this year. But not every driver faces difficulties in this manner.

Alonso, for instance, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 season when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I believe most in F1 would expect not.

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

Until the cars run for the first time in winter testing next year, no-one will know how the constructors are performing in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Barcelona on 26-30 January, is private because the constructors wanted to understand their first running of the new engines without the scrutiny of the media.

So the two tests in Sakhir on 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the initial occasion some kind of sense of relative performance becomes apparent.

But, as always, it's not until the season opener that the complete and precise situation will become clear.