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Must McLaren Accept Reality of F1 - That to Win, You Can't Always Play Fair?

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

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

"This is the manner we intend competing. This remains the philosophy in which we approach competition, and we want to stay fair, and we want to maintain equality to both drivers."

Team boss Stella is a veteran of many title battles. He won the title as race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari racer recovered seventeen points under the previous points system in two Grands Prix to secure the title, while McLaren collapsed.

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

Andrea Stella stated after the race in Texas: "We view the next five races as chances to extend the lead 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 experience. I can recall at least the 2007 season, 2010, in which you reach the last race and it's actually the [driver in] third [place] that claims the championship. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is determined by mathematics."

What Prompted McLaren to Cease Development on The Current Car?

All teams this season have had to face the conundrum of how long to concentrate on their 2025 car while also making sure they are as ready as they can be for the significant 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 get it right, that advantage can last for a while - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules were modified.

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

They continued to develop it for a while, but were experiencing reduced benefits. So when looking at the value for money they were getting on their 2025 season car versus the 2026 car, it became an straightforward choice to redirect attention to next year.

The Red Bull team have closed the gap since bringing their updated floor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team principal Stella said he believed Norris had the speed to challenge for the win in Austin had he not ended up behind Charles Leclerc.

"We must keep maximising the performance and keep executing strong race weekends. And from this point of view, if you consider a Grand Prix like Baku, we didn't maximise the car's potential and we didn't deliver a flawless performance."

"So definitely we have a significant opportunity, and the result of this championship and the drivers' championship is in our hands. It's not 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 each of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly difficult first halves of the championship, in different ways, and that they are now performing significantly improved.

Sainz and Albon currently appear very even. However, it's less certain that, in Hamilton's case, he is currently the "match" of Leclerc - or not regularly, at least.

Lewis Hamilton has failed to outperform Charles Leclerc frequently at all this year, either in qualifying or race.

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 Charles Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second slower than Leclerc when the Monegasque completed his tire change, and dropped 13 seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

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

Each of Lewis Hamilton and Sainz have talked about how difficult it is to switch teams, and we have to take them at their word.

Lewis Hamilton would not say even currently 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 great deal for a racing driver to get their head around when they change constructors, as Lewis Hamilton has described many times this year. But not every driver struggle in this manner.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 season when he transferred to the Aston Martin team. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I believe the majority in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know Next Year's Team Performance?

Until the cars run for the first time in winter testing next season, no-one will know how the constructors are performing in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is private 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 Bahrain on 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the initial occasion a certain sense of comparative speed becomes apparent.

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