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Must McLaren Accept Reality of F1 - That if You Want Win, It's Not Always Possible to Be Fair?

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

They will persist to give their two drivers the best chance they can and run the team on a basis of fairness and equanimity.

"This is the approach we intend competing. This is the method in which we tackle racing, and we aim to remain 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 race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver made up 17 points under the previous points system in two races to win the championship, while McLaren imploded.

And he lost the title as race engineer to Fernando Alonso in the 2010 season, when Ferrari made errors in their strategy at the last Grand Prix of the championship and allowed Vettel and Red Bull to snatch the championship from under their noses.

Andrea Stella said after the Grand Prix in Texas: "We look at the remaining five Grands Prix as opportunities 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 mathematics."

"We lean on the past experience. I can recall at least the 2007 season, the 2010 season, in which you go to the final Grand Prix and it's in fact the [driver in] third [place] that claims the championship. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is closed by mathematics."

What Prompted McLaren to Stop Upgrades on The Current Car?

All teams this year have had to confront the conundrum of how long to focus on their 2025 car while also ensuring they are as ready as they can be for the major rules overhaul scheduled for 2026.

In F1, it's typically the situation that if a constructor makes mistakes at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a long time to recover. And if they get it right, that benefit can continue for some time - consider the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules were modified.

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

They did continue to improve it for a period, but were finding reduced benefits. So when evaluating the value for money they were getting on their 2025 season car versus the 2026 car, it became an straightforward decision to switch focus to next year.

Red Bull have caught up since introducing their updated underfloor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team principal Stella stated he thought Lando Norris had the speed to compete for the win in Austin had he not ended up following Leclerc.

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

"Therefore we have a large chance, and the outcome of this season and the drivers' championship is in our hands. It's not in another team's control."

Team Changes: How Challenging Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, it's uncertain the question has an entirely accurate basis. It's correct that each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly difficult opening phases of the season, in different ways, and that they are currently faring much better.

Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon currently appear quite balanced. However, it's not so clear that, in Hamilton's case, he is currently the "equal" of Charles Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

Lewis Hamilton has not beaten Leclerc frequently at all this year, either in qualifying or Grand Prix.

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

This last weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second behind his teammate when the Monaco driver completed his tire change, and dropped 13 seconds over the rest of the race.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the best strategy. Regardless, over the season, and even currently, it's hard to argue that on balance Charles Leclerc has not been the superior Ferrari racer this year.

Both Lewis Hamilton and Sainz have discussed how difficult it is to switch teams, and we have to accept their statements.

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even now that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is expecting the regulation changes next season will suit him; he has never really enjoyed these venturi cars.

There is a lot for a racing driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Lewis Hamilton has explained repeatedly this season. But not every driver struggle in this manner.

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

When Will We Know Next Year's Team Performance?

Until the cars run for the initial time in pre-season testing next year, nobody will understand how the constructors are performing in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Barcelona on 26-30 January, is private because the constructors wanted to understand their initial track time of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the press.

So the pair of sessions in Bahrain on February 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 first race that the complete and precise situation will become clear.