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

McLaren are well aware of the obstacle they encounter with Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this year, but they see no reason to modify their strategy to managing the team.

They will continue to give their two drivers the best chance they can and operate the team on a basis of fairness and balance.

"This is the way we intend racing. This remains the philosophy in which we approach competition, and we want to stay fair, and we intend to apply equality to both drivers."

Team principal Stella is a seasoned expert of many championship fights. He claimed the championship as engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari racer made up seventeen points under the previous points system in two races to secure the title, while McLaren imploded.

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

Stella said after the Grand Prix in Austin: "We view the next five races as opportunities to extend the gap on Verstappen. And when it comes to having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will exclusively be determined by mathematics."

"We lean on the experience. I can recall at least 2007, the 2010 season, in which you reach the final Grand Prix and it's in fact the third-placed driver that claims the title. So we're not going to close the door unless this is closed by the calculations."

What Prompted McLaren to Cease Upgrades on The Current Car?

All teams this year have had to confront the dilemma of for how long to concentrate on their 2025 car while also making sure they are as ready as they can be for the significant rules overhaul coming for the 2026 season.

In F1, it's typically the case that if a constructor gets it wrong 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 continue for some time - look at Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules changed.

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

They did continue to improve it for a period, but were finding diminishing returns. So when looking at 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.

The Red Bull team have caught up since introducing their updated floor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren car remains competitive - team principal Andrea Stella stated he thought Norris had the speed to challenge for the victory in Texas had he not finished behind Leclerc.

"We just have to keep optimising the performance and keep delivering good race weekends. And from this perspective, if you consider a race like Baku City Circuit, we failed to optimize the performance and we didn't execute a perfect performance."

"So definitely we have a large opportunity, 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?

Initially, I'm not sure the question has an entirely accurate basis. It's true that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat difficult first halves of the season, in varying manners, and that they are now performing much better.

Sainz and Alex Albon do now look very even. However, it's less certain that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is yet the "match" of Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

Hamilton has failed to outperform Leclerc very often at all this season, either in qualifying sessions or Grand Prix.

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

This previous weekend in Texas, on one of Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a full second behind his teammate when the Monaco driver completed his pit stop, and dropped 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the best strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even currently, it's hard to argue that on average Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari driver this year.

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

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even now that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the new rules next year 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 year. But not every driver faces difficulties in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for example, was performing well from the start of the 2023 season when he transferred to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I suspect most in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know Next Year's Team Performance?

Before the F1 cars run for the initial time in pre-season testing next season, nobody will understand how the constructors are performing next year.

The first test, in Barcelona on 26-30 January, is behind closed doors because the constructors wanted to get their heads around their first running of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the press.

So the pair of sessions in Sakhir on February 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the initial occasion a certain indication of relative performance emerges.

But, as ever, it's only at the first race that the true and accurate picture will become clear.