🔗 Share this article

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

McLaren are well aware of the difficulty they confront with Max Verstappen and Red Bull in the drivers' championship this year, but they see no reason to change their method to managing the team.

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

"This is the manner we plan competing. This remains the philosophy in which we tackle competition, and we want to stay equitable, and we intend to maintain equal treatment to both drivers."

Team boss Stella is a veteran of numerous title battles. He claimed the championship as engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari racer made up 17 points under the old scoring system in two races to win the title, while McLaren collapsed.

And he missed out on the title as race engineer to Fernando Alonso in the 2010 season, when the Ferrari team messed up their strategy at the final race 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 Austin: "We look at the next five races as opportunities to extend the lead on Verstappen. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a driver, this will only be determined by mathematics."

"We lean on the experience. I can remember at least 2007, the 2010 season, in which you go to the last race and it's in fact the [driver in] third [place] that wins the championship. So we're not going to close the door unless this is closed by the calculations."

Why Did McLaren Stop Upgrades on The Current Car?

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

In Formula 1, it's usually the situation that if a constructor makes mistakes at the beginning of a new regulation period, it can take a long time to recover. And if they succeed, that advantage can last for a while - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules changed.

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

They continued to improve it for a while, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when looking at the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 car versus 2026, it became an straightforward decision to switch focus to the following season.

Red Bull have closed the gap since introducing their updated 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 Austin had he not ended up behind Leclerc.

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

"Therefore 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, it's uncertain the inquiry has an completely correct basis. It's correct that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky first halves of the championship, in different ways, and that they are now performing significantly improved.

Sainz and Albon do now appear quite balanced. 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 year, either in qualifying or race.

He is now significantly nearer than he previously. He is consistently qualifying within a small fraction of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying it's four-two to Leclerc since the summer break.

This last weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred circuits, he was a second behind Leclerc when the Monegasque made his tire change, and dropped 13 seconds over the rest of the race.

In hindsight, Leclerc was on the best race strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even now, it's hard to argue that on average Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari racer this year.

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

Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is expecting the new rules next season will benefit his driving style; he has never really enjoyed these venturi cars.

There is a lot for a driver to understand and adapt to when they change constructors, as Lewis Hamilton has explained many times this year. But not all struggle in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for example, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 season when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Max Verstappen face challenges if he switched teams? I suspect most in F1 would expect not.

How Soon Can We Determine Next Year's Competitive Order?

Until the cars are driven for the first time in winter testing next year, nobody will understand how the teams are performing in the upcoming season.

The first test, in Catalunya on 26-30 January, is behind closed doors because the constructors wanted to get their heads around their initial track time of the new engines without the prying eyes of the media.

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

But, as ever, it's not until the season opener that the true and accurate situation will emerge.