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

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

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

"This is the way we plan competing. This remains the way in which we approach racing, and we aim to remain fair, and we intend to apply equality to our drivers."

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

And he lost the championship as race engineer to Fernando Alonso in the 2010 season, when Ferrari made errors in their race strategy at the last Grand Prix of the season and enabled Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull to sneak the championship from their grasp.

Andrea Stella said following the Grand Prix in Texas: "We view the remaining five Grands Prix as opportunities to extend the lead on Max. And when it comes to having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will only be led by mathematics."

"We rely on the past experience. I can remember at least 2007, 2010, in which you reach the final Grand Prix and it's actually the third-placed driver that wins the championship. So we're not going to close the door unless this is closed by the calculations."

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

All teams this season have had to confront the dilemma of how long to concentrate on their 2025 car while also ensuring they are as ready as they can be for the major rules overhaul scheduled for the 2026 season.

In Formula 1, it's typically the case that if a team gets it wrong at the beginning of a new regulation period, it can take a long time to recover. And if they get it right, that benefit can last for a while - consider the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations changed.

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

They did continue to develop it for a while, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when looking at the bang for buck they were getting on their 2025 car compared to 2026, it became an straightforward decision to redirect attention to the following season.

The Red Bull team have closed the gap since bringing their new underfloor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team principal Stella stated he believed Norris had the speed to challenge for the win in Austin had he not ended up behind Charles Leclerc.

"We just have to keep maximising the car performance and continue executing good race weekends. And from this point of view, if you think of a Grand Prix like Baku City Circuit, we didn't maximise the performance and we didn't deliver a flawless race."

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

Team Changes: How Challenging Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, it's uncertain the question has an entirely accurate basis. It's true that both Hamilton and Sainz had slightly sticky opening phases of the season, in different ways, and that they are currently faring significantly improved.

Carlos Sainz and Albon currently appear quite balanced. However, it's not so clear that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is yet the "equal" of Charles Leclerc - or not consistently, anyway.

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

He is currently much closer than he previously. He is consistently setting times within a small fraction of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying battles it's 4-2 to Leclerc since the summer 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 pit stop, and lost thirteen seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

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

Both Lewis Hamilton and Sainz have talked about how challenging it is to change constructors, and we have to accept their statements.

Hamilton would not say even currently that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the new rules next year will suit him; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a lot for a driver to get their head around when they switch teams, as Hamilton has described many times this year. But not all faces difficulties in this way.

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

How Soon Can We Determine Next Year's Team Performance?

Before the cars are driven for the first time in pre-season testing next year, nobody will know how the teams are looking next year.

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

So the pair of sessions in Sakhir on February 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the first time some kind of sense of relative performance becomes apparent.

But, as ever, it's not until the season opener that the complete and precise picture will emerge.