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

The McLaren team are well aware of the difficulty they face with Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this year, but they don't believe to alter their method to managing the team.

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

"This is the way we intend competing. This is the philosophy in which we approach competition, and we want to stay fair, and we intend to apply equal treatment to both drivers."

Team principal Andrea Stella is a veteran of numerous championship fights. He won the championship as race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari driver recovered 17 points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to win the championship, while the McLaren team collapsed.

And he missed out on the championship as race engineer to Alonso in 2010, when the Ferrari team messed up their race strategy at the last Grand Prix of the championship and enabled Vettel and the Red Bull team to snatch the title from under their noses.

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

"We lean on the experience. I can recall at least 2007, 2010, in which you reach the last race and it's actually the third-placed driver that wins the championship. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is determined by the calculations."

Why Did McLaren Cease Upgrades on This Year's Car?

All teams this year have had to confront the conundrum of for how long to concentrate on their 2025 season car while also ensuring they are as prepared as they can be for the major regulation change coming for the 2026 season.

In Formula 1, it's typically the situation that if a team makes mistakes at the start of a new regulation period, it can take a long time to recover. And if they succeed, that advantage can last for a while - consider the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules changed.

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

They did continue to improve it for a while, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when looking at the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 car versus 2026, it became an easy choice to redirect attention to the following season.

The Red Bull team have caught up since bringing their new underfloor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team boss Stella stated he thought Lando Norris had the speed to challenge for the victory in Texas had he not finished following Charles Leclerc.

"We must keep optimising the car performance and continue executing good race weekends. And from this point of view, if you consider a Grand Prix like Baku City Circuit, we failed to optimize the car's potential and we didn't deliver a flawless performance."

"Therefore we have a large chance, and the result of this season and the drivers' championship is in our control. It's not in someone else's hands."

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, I'm not sure the question has an entirely accurate premise. It's correct that both Lewis Hamilton and Sainz had slightly sticky first halves of the season, in different ways, and that they are now faring significantly improved.

Sainz and Albon do now look very even. However, it's not so clear that, in Hamilton's case, he is yet the "equal" of Charles Leclerc - or not consistently, at least.

Lewis Hamilton has not beaten Leclerc frequently at all this year, either in qualifying or race.

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

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred circuits, he was a second slower than Leclerc when the Monaco driver made his pit stop, and lost 13 seconds over the rest of the race.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the optimal strategy. Nevertheless, over the season, and even now, it's difficult to argue that on balance Leclerc has not been the superior Ferrari racer this year.

Each of Lewis Hamilton and Sainz have talked about how difficult 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 benefit his driving style; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a lot for a driver to understand and adapt to when they change constructors, as Hamilton has described repeatedly this season. But not every driver faces difficulties in this manner.

Alonso, for example, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 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.

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

Before the F1 cars run for the initial time in winter testing next year, no-one will understand how the constructors are performing in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Catalunya on January 26-30, 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 two tests in Sakhir on 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the initial occasion a certain sense of relative performance emerges.

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