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

McLaren are fully conscious of the obstacle they face with Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this season, but they don't believe to alter their approach to running the team.

They will continue to provide their two 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 remains the way in which we tackle racing, and we aim to remain equitable, and we intend to apply equal treatment to both drivers."

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

And he lost the championship as engineer to Alonso in 2010, when Ferrari made errors in their race strategy at the final race of the season and enabled Vettel and the Red Bull team to snatch the title from their grasp.

Andrea Stella said after the Grand Prix in Austin: "We look at the next five races as opportunities to extend the lead on Max. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a team driver, this will exclusively be led by mathematics."

"We lean on the past experience. I can remember at least the 2007 season, the 2010 season, in which you go to the last race and it's in fact the [driver in] third [place] that wins the title. So we're not going to close the door unless this is closed by the calculations."

What Prompted McLaren to Cease Development on The Current Car?

Every team this year have had to face the dilemma of for how long to concentrate on their 2025 car while also making sure they are as prepared as they can be for the major regulation change coming for 2026.

In Formula 1, it's typically the case that if a constructor gets it wrong at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a long time to recover. 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 rules were modified.

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

They continued to develop it for a while, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when evaluating the bang for buck they were achieving on their 2025 car versus 2026, it became an straightforward choice to switch focus to the following season.

Red Bull have caught up since introducing their new underfloor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team boss Andrea Stella stated he believed Lando Norris had the speed to compete for the win in Texas had he not ended up behind Charles Leclerc.

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

"Therefore 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 Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

Initially, I'm not sure the inquiry has an entirely correct basis. It's true that both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky first halves of the championship, in varying manners, and that they are now performing significantly improved.

Sainz and Alex Albon currently appear very even. However, it's not so clear that, in Hamilton's case, he is currently the "equal" of Charles Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

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

He is now significantly nearer than he was. He is regularly setting times within a few hundredths of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This last weekend in Texas, on one of Hamilton's preferred circuits, he was a second slower than his teammate when the Monaco driver completed his pit stop, and lost 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the race.

Looking back, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even now, it's hard to claim that on average Charles Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari racer this season.

Each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have talked about how challenging 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 the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the regulation changes next season 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 change constructors, as Hamilton has described many times this season. But not all faces difficulties in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for example, was performing well from the start of the 2023 season when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Max Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I believe the majority in Formula 1 would expect not.

How Soon Can We Determine The Coming Season's Team Performance?

Until the F1 cars are driven for the first time in pre-season testing next year, no-one will understand 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 initial track time of the new engines without the scrutiny of the press.

So the two tests in Bahrain on 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the initial occasion a certain sense of comparative speed becomes apparent.

But, as always, it's not until the first race that the complete and precise situation will emerge.