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

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

They will persist to provide their two drivers the optimal opportunity they can and run the team on a basis of fairness and balance.

"This represents the approach we plan competing. This is the philosophy in which we approach racing, and we aim to remain fair, and we want to maintain equality to our drivers."

Team boss Stella is a veteran of numerous title battles. He claimed the title as engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver recovered seventeen points under the old scoring system in two races to secure the title, while the McLaren team imploded.

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

Andrea Stella said following the Grand Prix in Texas: "We view the remaining five Grands Prix as chances to increase the gap on Max. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a team driver, this will only be led by mathematics."

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

What Prompted McLaren to Stop Development on The Current Car?

Every team this season have had to confront the conundrum of how long to focus on their 2025 season car while also ensuring they are as prepared as they can be for the significant rules overhaul scheduled for the 2026 season.

In Formula 1, it's usually the situation that if a team makes mistakes at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they get it right, that advantage can continue for some time - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules changed.

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

They did continue to develop it for a while, but were finding diminishing returns. So when looking at the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 season car compared to the 2026 car, it became an easy decision to switch focus to the following season.

The Red Bull team have closed the gap since introducing their new floor and front wing at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team principal Stella said he thought Lando Norris had the speed to compete for the victory in Texas had he not finished following Leclerc.

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

"So definitely we have a large opportunity, and the result of this season and the driver's title is in our control. It's not placed in someone else's hands."

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, it's uncertain the inquiry has an entirely correct basis. It's true that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly difficult first halves of the championship, in different ways, and that they are now faring significantly improved.

Sainz and Albon currently appear quite balanced. However, it's not so clear that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is yet the "match" of Charles Leclerc - or not consistently, anyway.

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

He is now significantly nearer than he previously. He is consistently setting times within a few hundredths of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying it's four-two to Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a full second behind Leclerc when the Monaco driver completed his tire change, and lost thirteen seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the best strategy. Regardless, over the season, and even now, it's hard to argue that on average Charles Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari driver this season.

Each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have discussed 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 suit him; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a lot for a driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Hamilton has described many times this season. But not all struggle in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for example, was on it from the start of the 2023 when he moved to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I believe most in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

How Soon Can We Determine The Coming Season's Competitive Order?

Before the F1 cars are driven for the initial time in winter testing next year, nobody will know how the constructors are performing in the upcoming season.

The first test, in Catalunya on 26-30 January, is private because the teams 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 February 18-20 will be the first time some kind of sense of comparative speed becomes apparent.

But, as ever, it's only at the season opener that the true and accurate situation will become clear.