🔗 Share this article

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

The McLaren team are well aware of the obstacle they face with Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this season, but they don't believe to alter their method to managing the team.

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

"This represents the way we intend competing. This is the method in which we approach competition, and we aim to stay equitable, and we intend to maintain equality to both drivers."

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

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

Andrea Stella said following the Grand Prix in Texas: "We look at the remaining five Grands Prix as chances to increase the gap on Max. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a driver, this will exclusively be led by the numbers."

"We rely on the experience. I can recall at least 2007, 2010, in which you go to 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 closed by the calculations."

Why Did McLaren Cease Development on This Year's Car?

Every team 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 major regulation change scheduled for 2026.

In F1, it's usually the situation that if a constructor makes mistakes at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to catch up. And if they succeed, that advantage can last for a while - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations were modified.

The McLaren team began this season with the fastest car, after putting a lot of innovation into their 2025 season design.

They continued to develop it for a period, but were finding reduced benefits. So when looking at 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 caught up since bringing their new underfloor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team principal Stella said he thought Lando Norris had the pace to compete for the victory in Texas had he not ended up behind Charles Leclerc.

"We just have to continue optimising the performance and keep executing good weekends. And from this perspective, if you consider a race like Baku City Circuit, we failed to optimize the performance and we didn't execute a flawless race."

"Therefore we have a significant opportunity, and the outcome of this season and the drivers' championship is in our control. It's not placed in someone else's hands."

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, it's uncertain the question has an completely correct basis. It's true that both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat difficult first halves of the season, in varying manners, and that they are now faring significantly improved.

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

Lewis Hamilton has failed to outperform Charles Leclerc very often at all this season, either in qualifying sessions or race.

He is currently much closer than he was. He is consistently setting times within a few hundredths of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying battles it's four-two to Charles Leclerc since the summer break.

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite circuits, he was a full second behind Leclerc when the Monegasque completed his tire change, and dropped 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Regardless, over the championship, and even now, it's hard to argue that on balance Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari racer this year.

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

Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was completely adjusted to the Ferrari car - and he is expecting the new rules next season will suit him; he has never really enjoyed these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a great deal for a racing driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Lewis Hamilton has explained repeatedly this year. But not all struggle in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was on it from the start of the 2023 season when he transferred to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I believe most in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know Next Year's Competitive Order?

Before the F1 cars are driven for the first time in pre-season testing next year, no-one will understand how the teams are looking next year.

The first test, in Barcelona on 26-30 January, is behind closed doors because the constructors wanted to understand their initial track time of the power unit changes without the scrutiny of the press.

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

But, as always, it's not until the season opener that the complete and precise picture will emerge.