🔗 Share this article

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

The McLaren team are well aware of the difficulty they face with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this season, but they don't believe to modify their strategy to running the team.

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

"This represents the approach we plan competing. This is the method in which we approach competition, and we aim to stay equitable, and we want to maintain equal treatment to both drivers."

Team principal Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of many championship fights. He won the championship as engineer to Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari racer recovered 17 points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to win the title, while the McLaren team imploded.

And he missed out on the title as engineer to Alonso in the 2010 season, when Ferrari messed up their strategy at the final race of the championship and allowed Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull to snatch the championship from their grasp.

Andrea Stella stated following the Grand Prix in Texas: "We look at the next five races as chances to extend the gap on Max. And when it involves having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will exclusively be led by the numbers."

"We lean 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 claims the championship. So we're not going to close the door unless this is closed by mathematics."

What Prompted McLaren to Stop Upgrades on This Year's 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 major regulation change scheduled for 2026.

In Formula 1, it's typically the case that if a team gets it wrong at the start of a new regulation period, it can take a long time to recover. And if they succeed, that advantage can continue for some time - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations were modified.

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

They continued to improve it for a period, but were finding reduced benefits. So when evaluating the value for money they were getting on their 2025 car compared to 2026, it became an straightforward choice to switch focus to the following season.

Red Bull have closed the gap since introducing their updated underfloor and front wing at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team boss Stella said he thought Norris had the pace to challenge for the victory in Texas had he not finished behind Leclerc.

"We must continue optimising the performance and keep delivering good weekends. And from this point of view, if you consider a race like Baku, we didn't maximise the car's potential and we didn't execute a perfect race."

"Therefore we have a large opportunity, and the result of this season and the driver's title is in our hands. It's not placed in another team's control."

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, I'm not sure the question has an completely accurate premise. It's correct that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky opening phases of the season, in different ways, and that they are currently faring much better.

Carlos Sainz and Albon currently appear quite balanced. However, it's not so clear that, in Hamilton's case, he is currently the "equal" of Leclerc - or not regularly, at least.

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

He is now much closer than he was. He is regularly setting times within a small fraction of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Charles Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's preferred circuits, he was a full second slower than Leclerc when the Monegasque completed his pit stop, and dropped 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the race.

Looking back, Charles Leclerc was on the best race strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even currently, it's difficult to claim that on average Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari racer this year.

Both Lewis Hamilton and Sainz have discussed how challenging it is to switch teams, and we have to take them at their word.

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even now that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the regulation changes next year 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 switch teams, as Hamilton has explained many times this year. But not every driver struggle in this manner.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was on it from the start of the 2023 when he transferred to Aston Martin. And would Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I believe most in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

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

Until the cars are driven for the first time in pre-season testing next season, no-one will know how the constructors are looking in the upcoming season.

The first test, in Barcelona on January 26-30, is behind closed doors because the teams preferred to understand their initial track time of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the media.

So the pair of sessions in Sakhir on February 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the initial occasion a certain indication of relative performance becomes apparent.

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