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

McLaren are well aware of the difficulty they encounter with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this year, but they see no reason to alter their method to managing the team.

They will persist to give both drivers the best chance they can and run the team on a foundation of fairness and equanimity.

"This is the way we plan racing. This is the method in which we approach racing, and we aim to remain fair, and we intend to apply equal treatment to both drivers."

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

And he lost the title as engineer to Alonso in the 2010 season, when Ferrari messed up their strategy at the last Grand Prix of the season and enabled Sebastian Vettel and the Red Bull team to sneak the title from under their noses.

Andrea Stella stated after the race in Austin: "We view the next five races as chances to increase the lead on Max. And when it involves having to make a call as to a team driver, this will only be determined by mathematics."

"We rely on the experience. I can recall at least 2007, 2010, in which you reach the final Grand Prix and it's in fact the [driver in] third [place] that wins the championship. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is determined by the calculations."

Why Did McLaren Cease Development on The Current Car?

All teams this season have had to face the conundrum of for how long to concentrate on their 2025 car while also making sure they are as prepared as they can be for the significant rules overhaul scheduled for the 2026 season.

In F1, it's usually the situation that if a constructor gets it wrong at the beginning of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they get it right, that benefit can last for a while - look at Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the last time the regulations were modified.

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

They continued to develop it for a while, but were experiencing reduced benefits. So when evaluating the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 car compared to 2026, it became an easy decision to redirect attention to next year.

Red Bull have caught up since bringing their new underfloor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team principal Stella stated he thought Lando Norris had the pace to challenge for the win in Texas had he not ended up behind Charles Leclerc.

"We just have to keep maximising the car performance and keep executing strong weekends. And from this perspective, if you consider a Grand Prix like Baku City Circuit, we failed to optimize the performance and we didn't execute a perfect performance."

"Therefore we have a large chance, and the result of this championship and the driver's title is in our control. It's not placed 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 completely correct basis. It's true that each of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky first halves of the season, in different ways, and that they are now performing significantly improved.

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

Lewis Hamilton has failed to outperform Leclerc frequently at all this season, either in qualifying or Grand Prix.

He is now significantly nearer than he was. He is consistently qualifying within a small fraction of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Leclerc since the summer break.

This last weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite tracks, he was a full second behind Leclerc when the Monegasque made his pit stop, and dropped 13 seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Leclerc was on the optimal race 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 season.

Each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have talked about how challenging it is to change constructors, and we have to take them at their word.

Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is expecting the regulation changes next year will benefit his driving style; he has never particularly liked these venturi cars.

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

Alonso, for example, was performing well from the start of the 2023 season when he transferred to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I believe the majority in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

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

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

The initial session, in Barcelona on January 26-30, is private because the teams preferred to get their heads around their first running of the power unit changes without the scrutiny of the media.

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

But, as always, it's not until the season opener that the true and accurate situation will emerge.