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Do McLaren Face the Truth of F1 - That to Win, It's Not Always Possible to Be Fair?

The McLaren team are well aware of the challenge they confront with Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this season, but they don't believe to alter their method to running the team.

They will continue to give their two drivers the optimal opportunity they can and run the team on a foundation of fairness and balance.

"This represents the way we intend racing. This remains the way in which we tackle racing, and we aim to stay equitable, and we want to apply equal treatment to our drivers."

Team boss Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of many championship fights. He claimed the championship as race engineer to Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari driver recovered 17 points under the previous points system in two Grands Prix to secure the title, while McLaren collapsed.

And he missed out on the title as engineer to Fernando Alonso in the 2010 season, when the Ferrari team messed up their strategy at the final race of the championship and allowed Vettel and the Red Bull team to sneak the championship from their grasp.

Stella stated following the Grand Prix in Texas: "We view the remaining five Grands Prix as opportunities to extend the gap on Max. And when it involves having to make a call as to a driver, this will exclusively be determined by mathematics."

"We lean on the experience. I can remember at least 2007, 2010, in which you go to the last race and it's actually the [driver in] third [place] 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 making sure they are as ready as they can be for the major regulation change scheduled for the 2026 season.

In F1, it's typically the situation that if a constructor makes mistakes at the beginning of a new regulation period, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they get it right, that advantage can last for a while - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the last time the regulations changed.

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

They continued to develop it for a while, but were finding diminishing returns. So when evaluating the value for money they were getting on their 2025 car versus 2026, it became an easy decision to switch focus to the following season.

The Red Bull team have caught up since introducing their new floor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team principal Andrea Stella said he thought Lando Norris had the pace to challenge for the victory in Austin had he not finished behind Leclerc.

"We must keep maximising the performance and keep executing strong weekends. And from this point of view, if you think of a race like Baku City Circuit, we didn't maximise the car's potential and we didn't execute a perfect performance."

"So definitely we have a large opportunity, and the outcome of this championship and the driver's title is in our hands. It's not in another team's control."

Driver Transfers: How Challenging Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, I'm not sure the question has an entirely correct basis. It's true that each of Lewis Hamilton and Sainz had slightly difficult opening phases of the season, in different ways, and that they are currently performing much better.

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

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

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

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a full second slower than Leclerc when the Monegasque completed his tire change, and dropped thirteen seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the best race strategy. Nevertheless, over the season, and even currently, it's difficult to claim that on average Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari racer this season.

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

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

There is a great deal for a driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Hamilton has explained many times this season. But not every driver struggle in this way.

Alonso, for instance, was performing well from the start of the 2023 season when he transferred to the Aston Martin team. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he switched teams? I suspect most in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know Next Year's Team Performance?

Before the F1 cars run for the initial time in winter testing next year, no-one will know how the teams are looking in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is private because the constructors wanted to get their heads around their first running of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the media.

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

But, as ever, it's not until the first race that the complete and precise situation will become clear.