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

McLaren are fully conscious of the difficulty they encounter with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this season, but they don't believe to change their approach to running the team.

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

"This represents the approach we intend racing. This is the philosophy in which we approach competition, and we aim to stay equitable, and we intend to apply equality to both drivers."

Team principal Stella is a seasoned expert of numerous championship fights. He won the title as engineer to Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari racer recovered seventeen points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to win the championship, while the McLaren team imploded.

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

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

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

Why Did McLaren Stop Development on The Current Car?

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

In F1, it's typically the case that if a constructor makes mistakes at the beginning of a new regulation period, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they succeed, that benefit can last for a while - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules were modified.

McLaren began this season with the best car, after putting a lot of innovation into their 2025 season design.

They continued to develop it for a while, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when looking at the value for money they were getting on their 2025 car compared to the 2026 car, it became an straightforward choice to switch focus to next year.

Red Bull have caught up since bringing their updated floor and front wing at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team boss Andrea Stella stated he thought Norris had the pace to compete for the victory in Austin had he not ended up following Charles Leclerc.

"We must keep maximising the performance and continue executing strong race weekends. And from this perspective, if you consider a Grand Prix like Baku, we failed to optimize the car's potential and we didn't execute a flawless performance."

"So definitely 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 Switch Teams?

First of all, I'm not sure the question has an completely correct basis. It's true that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly difficult opening phases of the championship, in different ways, and that they are now faring much better.

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

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

He is now much closer than he previously. He is regularly qualifying within a few hundredths of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Charles Leclerc since the mid-season break.

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

Looking back, Leclerc was on the best strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even currently, it's difficult to claim that on balance Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari driver this season.

Both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have discussed how challenging it is to change constructors, 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 season will suit him; he has never particularly liked these venturi cars.

There is a lot for a driver to understand and adapt to when they change constructors, as Lewis Hamilton has described many times this year. But not all struggle in this manner.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 when he moved to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I suspect most in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

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

Before the F1 cars are driven for the initial time in pre-season testing next year, no-one will know how the constructors are performing in the upcoming season.

The first test, in Barcelona on 26-30 January, is behind closed doors because the teams wanted to understand their first running of the new engines without the prying eyes of the media.

So the pair of sessions in Sakhir on 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the first time some kind of indication of relative performance emerges.

But, as ever, it's not until the season opener that the true and accurate picture will become clear.