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

McLaren are fully conscious of the challenge they confront with Max Verstappen and Red Bull in the drivers' championship this year, but they don't believe to alter their approach to running the team.

They will continue to provide both drivers the optimal opportunity they can and run the team on a foundation of equity and balance.

"This represents the approach we plan competing. This remains the philosophy in which we approach racing, and we want to stay equitable, and we want to apply equality to our drivers."

Team boss Stella is a seasoned expert of many title battles. He claimed the title as engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver made up seventeen points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to win the championship, while the McLaren team collapsed.

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

Andrea Stella stated after the race in Austin: "We look at the next five races as chances 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 the numbers."

"We rely on the experience. I can remember at least the 2007 season, 2010, in which you go to the final Grand Prix and it's actually the [driver in] third [place] that claims the championship. So we're not going to close the door unless this is determined by mathematics."

Why Did McLaren Stop Upgrades on The Current Car?

Every team this season have had to confront the conundrum of for how long to focus on their 2025 car while also making sure they are as ready as they can be for the significant rules overhaul coming for 2026.

In Formula 1, it's typically the situation that if a team makes mistakes at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to catch up. And if they get it right, that benefit can last for a while - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the last time the regulations were modified.

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

They did continue to develop it for a period, but were finding reduced benefits. So when evaluating the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 car compared to the 2026 car, it became an easy choice to switch focus to the following season.

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

"We must keep optimising the performance and keep delivering strong weekends. And from this perspective, if you consider a race like Baku City Circuit, we didn't maximise the car's potential and we didn't deliver a perfect race."

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

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

Initially, I'm not sure the question has an completely correct premise. It's true that each of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky opening phases of the season, in varying manners, and that they are currently performing significantly improved.

Sainz and Alex Albon do now appear very even. However, it's less certain that, in Hamilton's case, he is yet the "equal" of Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

Lewis Hamilton has failed to outperform Leclerc frequently at all this season, either in qualifying or Grand Prix.

He is now much closer than he was. He is consistently qualifying within a small fraction of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Leclerc since the summer break.

This last weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite tracks, he was a second slower than his teammate when the Monaco driver completed his tire change, and dropped 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even currently, it's difficult to claim that on average Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari racer this season.

Both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have discussed how difficult it is to change constructors, and we have to take them at their word.

Lewis Hamilton would not say even now that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the regulation changes next year will suit him; 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 described many times this year. But not every driver struggle in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was performing well from the start of the 2023 when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Max Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I believe most in Formula 1 would expect not.

How Soon Can We Determine The Coming Season's Competitive Order?

Before the cars run for the first time in winter testing next season, no-one will understand how the teams are performing next year.

The initial session, in Catalunya on 26-30 January, is private because the constructors wanted to get their heads around their first running of the new engines without the scrutiny of the press.

So the pair of sessions in Bahrain on February 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the first time a certain sense of relative performance becomes apparent.

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