🔗 Share this article

Do McLaren Face the Truth of F1 - That if You Want Win, You Can't Always Be Fair?

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

They will continue to give their two drivers the optimal opportunity they can and operate the team on a basis of equity and balance.

"This is the approach we plan competing. This is the method in which we approach racing, and we want to remain fair, and we intend to apply equality to both drivers."

Team boss Andrea Stella is a veteran of many title battles. He won the title as engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver made up 17 points under the old scoring system in two races to win the title, while McLaren imploded.

And he lost the title as race engineer to Fernando Alonso in the 2010 season, when Ferrari made errors in their race strategy at the last Grand Prix of the championship and allowed Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull to sneak the title from under their noses.

Andrea Stella said after the Grand Prix in Austin: "We view the next five races as opportunities to increase the gap on Verstappen. And when it involves having to make a call as to a driver, this will exclusively be led by mathematics."

"We lean on the experience. I can recall at least the 2007 season, 2010, in which you go to the final Grand Prix and it's actually the third-placed driver that wins the championship. So we're not going to close the door unless this is closed by mathematics."

What Prompted McLaren to Cease Upgrades on This Year's Car?

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

In F1, it's typically the situation that if a team makes mistakes at the beginning of a new regulation period, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they get it right, that benefit can continue for some time - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules were modified.

The McLaren team began 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 reduced benefits. So when looking at the bang for buck they were achieving on their 2025 season car versus the 2026 car, it became an easy choice to switch focus to next year.

The Red Bull team have caught up since introducing their new floor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team boss Stella said he believed Lando Norris had the speed to compete for the win in Texas had he not finished behind Leclerc.

"We must continue optimising the car performance and continue delivering good weekends. And from this perspective, if you think of a race like Baku, we didn't maximise the performance and we didn't deliver a perfect race."

"So definitely we have a significant opportunity, and the outcome of this season and the driver's title is in our control. It's not placed in another team's control."

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, it's uncertain the question has an completely accurate premise. It's true that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat difficult first halves of the championship, in different ways, and that they are currently performing much better.

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

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

He is currently significantly nearer than he was. He is regularly setting times within a small fraction of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying it's four-two to Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This previous weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second behind his teammate when the Monaco driver completed his pit stop, and lost 13 seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

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

Each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have talked about how challenging it is to switch teams, and we have to accept their statements.

Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the new rules next year will suit him; he has never really enjoyed 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 every driver faces difficulties in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was performing well from the start of the 2023 season when he moved to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he switched teams? I believe the majority 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 pre-season testing next year, nobody will know how the teams are performing in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is behind closed doors because the teams preferred to understand their initial track time of the new engines without the prying eyes of the media.

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

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