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

McLaren are well aware of the challenge they confront with Max Verstappen and Red Bull in the drivers' championship this year, but they don't believe to change their approach to managing the team.

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

"This represents the manner we plan competing. This is the method in which we approach competition, and we aim to remain fair, and we want to apply equal treatment to both drivers."

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

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

Stella stated following the race in Texas: "We look at the next five races as opportunities to increase the lead on Max. And when it involves having to make a call as to a driver, this will only be led by the numbers."

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

Why Did McLaren Stop Development on The Current Car?

All teams this year have had to confront the conundrum of for how long to concentrate on their 2025 season car while also making sure they are as ready as they can be for the significant regulation change coming for the 2026 season.

In F1, it's typically the situation that if a constructor gets it wrong at the beginning of a new rules cycle, it can take a long time to catch up. And if they succeed, that advantage can continue for some time - consider the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules were modified.

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

They did continue to improve it for a while, but were finding diminishing returns. So when evaluating the bang for buck they were achieving on their 2025 car versus the 2026 car, it became an easy choice to redirect attention to the following season.

Red Bull have closed the gap since bringing their new floor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team boss Andrea Stella stated he thought Norris had the speed to compete for the victory in Austin had he not finished following Charles Leclerc.

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

"So definitely we have a significant opportunity, and the outcome of this championship and the driver's title is in our hands. It's not placed in someone else's hands."

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

Initially, it's uncertain the inquiry has an completely correct basis. It's correct that each of Lewis Hamilton and Sainz had slightly difficult opening phases of the championship, in different ways, and that they are currently faring significantly improved.

Carlos Sainz and Alex 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 season, either in qualifying sessions or race.

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

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

Looking back, Charles 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 better Ferrari driver this season.

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

Lewis Hamilton would not say even now that he was completely adjusted to the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the regulation changes next year will benefit his driving style; he has never particularly liked these venturi cars.

There is a great deal for a racing driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Hamilton has explained many times this year. But not every driver faces difficulties in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 season when he transferred to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen face challenges if he switched teams? I suspect most in F1 would expect not.

When Will We Know The Coming Season's Team Performance?

Until the F1 cars run for the first time in pre-season testing next season, no-one will know how the constructors are performing next year.

The initial session, in Barcelona on 26-30 January, is private because the teams wanted to get their heads around their initial track time of the new engines without the scrutiny of the press.

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

But, as ever, it's only at the season opener that the true and accurate picture will become clear.