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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 confront with Max Verstappen and Red Bull in the championship battle this season, but they don't believe to alter their method to running the team.

They will persist to provide both drivers the optimal opportunity they can and operate the team on a foundation of equity and equanimity.

"This is the way we plan competing. This remains the method in which we tackle racing, and we aim to stay fair, and we want to apply equality to our drivers."

Team boss Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of numerous championship fights. He claimed the title as engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver made up seventeen points under the old scoring system in two races to secure the championship, while the McLaren team imploded.

And he missed out on the championship as race engineer to Fernando Alonso in 2010, when Ferrari made errors in their strategy at the last Grand Prix of the championship and allowed Vettel and the Red Bull team to snatch the title from their grasp.

Stella said following the race in Austin: "We view the next five races as opportunities to extend the gap on Verstappen. And when it involves having to make a call as to a driver, this will only be led by mathematics."

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

What Prompted McLaren to Cease Development on The Current Car?

All teams this year have had to face the conundrum 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 rules overhaul coming for 2026.

In F1, it's typically the situation that if a team makes mistakes at the beginning of a new regulation period, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they get it right, that advantage can continue for some time - look at Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules were modified.

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

They did continue to develop it for a while, but were finding diminishing returns. So when looking at the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 car versus the 2026 car, it became an easy choice to redirect attention to next year.

The Red Bull team have caught up since bringing their new underfloor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team boss Andrea Stella said he believed Norris had the pace to challenge for the victory in Austin had he not ended up behind Leclerc.

"We just have to keep maximising the performance and keep executing good weekends. And from this perspective, if you think of a race like Baku, we didn't maximise the car's potential and we didn't execute 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 in another team's control."

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

Initially, it's uncertain the question has an entirely accurate basis. It's true that each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat sticky opening phases of the season, in different ways, and that they are currently faring significantly improved.

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

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

He is currently significantly nearer than he was. He is regularly setting times within a few hundredths of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Charles Leclerc since the summer break.

This previous weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a full second behind his teammate when the Monegasque made his pit stop, and lost thirteen seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Regardless, over the season, and even now, it's hard to claim that on balance Leclerc has hasn't been the better Ferrari racer this year.

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

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is expecting the regulation changes 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 Hamilton has described many times this year. But not every driver struggle in this manner.

Fernando Alonso, for example, was on it from the start of the 2023 season when he moved to Aston Martin. And would Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I suspect the majority in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know Next Year's Competitive Order?

Before the cars run for the initial time in pre-season testing next year, nobody will know how the constructors are looking in the upcoming season.

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

So the two tests in Bahrain on February 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the first time some kind of sense of comparative speed emerges.

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