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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 difficulty they encounter with Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this season, but they see no reason to modify their approach to managing the team.

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

"This is the approach we intend racing. This remains the way in which we approach competition, and we want to remain fair, and we want to maintain equality to both drivers."

Team principal Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of many championship fights. He won the championship as engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver recovered seventeen points under the previous points system in two races to secure the title, while the McLaren team collapsed.

And he missed out on the title 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 allowed Vettel and Red Bull to sneak the title from under their noses.

Stella stated following the race in Austin: "We view the next five races as chances to increase the lead on Verstappen. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a driver, this will exclusively be led by mathematics."

"We rely on the past experience. I can recall at least 2007, 2010, in which you reach the last race and it's actually the [driver in] third [place] that wins the championship. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is determined by the calculations."

Why Did McLaren Cease Upgrades on The Current Car?

Every team this year have had to face the conundrum of how long to concentrate on their 2025 car while also ensuring they are as ready as they can be for the major rules overhaul coming for the 2026 season.

In F1, it's typically the situation that if a constructor makes mistakes at the beginning of a new rules cycle, it can take a long time to catch up. And if they get it right, that benefit can last for a while - look at Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules were modified.

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

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

The Red Bull team have caught up since introducing their new underfloor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team boss Andrea Stella stated he believed Lando Norris had the speed to challenge for the victory in Texas had he not ended up behind Leclerc.

"We just have to keep maximising the car performance and keep delivering good weekends. And from this perspective, if you think of a Grand Prix like Baku City Circuit, we failed to optimize the performance and we didn't deliver a flawless performance."

"Therefore we have a significant opportunity, and the result of this season and the driver's title is in our hands. It's not placed in someone else's hands."

Team Changes: How Challenging Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, I'm not sure the inquiry has an entirely correct basis. It's correct that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky first halves of the championship, in varying manners, and that they are now faring significantly improved.

Sainz and Albon do now appear quite balanced. However, it's less certain that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is currently the "match" of Charles Leclerc - or not consistently, anyway.

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

He is currently much closer than he previously. He is regularly setting times within a small fraction of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying battles it's 4-2 to Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This last weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite tracks, he was a second slower than Leclerc when the Monegasque completed his pit stop, and lost 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the race.

Looking back, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Nevertheless, over the season, and even currently, it's hard to argue that on average Charles Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari racer this year.

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

Hamilton would not say even currently that he was completely adjusted to Ferrari - and he is expecting the regulation changes next year will benefit his driving style; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a great deal for a racing driver to understand and adapt to when they change constructors, as Hamilton has described many times this season. But not all struggle in this manner.

Alonso, for example, was performing well from the start of the 2023 season when he transferred to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen face challenges if he switched teams? I suspect most in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

How Soon Can We Determine The Coming Season's Team Performance?

Before the F1 cars are driven for the initial time in winter testing next year, no-one will understand how the constructors are looking next year.

The initial session, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is private because the constructors wanted to get their heads around their initial track time of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the media.

So the two tests in Sakhir on February 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the first time some kind of indication of relative performance emerges.

But, as ever, it's only at the first race that the complete and precise picture will become clear.