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Must McLaren Accept Reality of F1 - That if You Want Win, It's Not Always Possible to Play Fair?

The McLaren team are well aware of the difficulty they encounter with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this season, but they don't believe to change their approach to managing the team.

They will continue to provide both drivers the best chance they can and run the team on a basis of fairness and equanimity.

"This is the manner we plan competing. This is the method in which we tackle racing, and we want to stay equitable, and we intend to apply equal treatment to both drivers."

Team principal Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of many title battles. He won the championship as race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari racer recovered seventeen points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to secure the championship, while the McLaren team collapsed.

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

Stella stated after the Grand Prix in Austin: "We view the next five races as opportunities to increase the gap on Verstappen. And when it involves having to make a call as to a team driver, this will exclusively be led by the numbers."

"We lean 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 third-placed driver that claims the title. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is closed by the calculations."

What Prompted McLaren to Cease Development on The Current Car?

Every team this season have had to confront the dilemma of for how long to focus on their 2025 car while also ensuring they are as ready as they can be for the significant regulation change coming for the 2026 season.

In F1, it's usually the situation that if a team makes mistakes 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 continue for some time - consider the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations were modified.

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

They did continue to develop it for a period, but were finding reduced benefits. So when evaluating the value for money they were getting on their 2025 season car versus the 2026 car, it became an straightforward choice to redirect attention to the following season.

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

"We must continue maximising the car performance and keep executing good weekends. And from this perspective, if you consider a race like Baku, we didn't maximise the performance and we didn't deliver a perfect performance."

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

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, it's uncertain the question has an completely correct basis. It's correct that each of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat difficult opening phases of the season, in different ways, and that they are currently faring significantly improved.

Sainz and Alex Albon do now appear quite balanced. However, it's less certain that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is currently the "match" of Charles Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

Hamilton has not beaten Charles Leclerc frequently at all this season, either in qualifying or Grand Prix.

He is now much closer than he was. He is consistently setting times within a small fraction of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying it's four-two to Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This previous weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second slower than his teammate when the Monegasque completed his tire change, and dropped 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal strategy. Regardless, over the championship, and even now, it's hard to claim that on balance Charles Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari driver this year.

Each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have talked about how difficult it is to switch teams, and we have to accept their statements.

Hamilton would not say even now that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the regulation changes next year will benefit his driving style; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a great deal for a driver to get their head around when they change constructors, as Lewis Hamilton has described many times this year. But not every driver faces difficulties in this manner.

Alonso, for instance, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 when he transferred to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen struggle if he switched teams? I believe most in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

How Soon Can We Determine Next Year's Competitive Order?

Before the cars run for the initial time in pre-season testing next year, no-one will know how the teams are performing in the upcoming season.

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

So the pair of sessions in Bahrain on February 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the initial occasion a certain sense of comparative speed emerges.

But, as always, it's only at the season opener that the complete and precise picture will emerge.