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

The McLaren team 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 modify their method to running the team.

They will persist to provide their two drivers the best chance they can and operate the team on a foundation of fairness and equanimity.

"This is the manner we intend racing. This remains the way in which we tackle racing, and we want to remain equitable, and we intend to maintain equality to our drivers."

Team boss Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of numerous championship fights. He claimed the title as race engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari racer made up seventeen points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to secure the title, while McLaren collapsed.

And he missed out on the title as engineer to Alonso in the 2010 season, when Ferrari made errors in their strategy at the last Grand Prix of the season and allowed Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull to snatch the title from under their noses.

Stella commented after the Grand Prix in Austin: "We look at the remaining five Grands Prix as chances to increase the gap on Verstappen. And when it involves having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will only be determined by the numbers."

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

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

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

In F1, it's typically the situation that if a team gets it wrong at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to catch up. 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.

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

They continued to develop it for a while, but were finding diminishing returns. So when looking at the bang for buck they were getting on their 2025 car compared to the 2026 car, it became an easy decision to redirect attention to the following season.

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

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

"Therefore we have a large chance, and the result of this championship and the drivers' championship is in our hands. 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 inquiry has an completely correct basis. It's true that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat sticky first halves of the season, in varying manners, and that they are now performing much better.

Carlos Sainz and Albon do now appear very even. However, it's not so clear that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is yet the "match" of Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

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

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

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's favourite tracks, he was a second slower than his teammate when the Monegasque made his pit stop, and dropped thirteen seconds over the rest of the race.

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

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

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even now that he was completely adjusted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the regulation changes next season will suit him; he has never particularly liked these venturi cars.

There is a great deal for a driver to get their head around when they change constructors, as Hamilton has described many times this year. But not every driver struggle in this manner.

Alonso, for instance, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I believe most in F1 would expect not.

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

Before the cars are driven for the first time in pre-season testing next year, nobody will understand how the constructors are performing in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Catalunya on 26-30 January, is behind closed doors because the teams preferred to understand their first running of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the press.

So the two tests in Bahrain on 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the first time some kind of sense of relative performance becomes apparent.

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