🔗 Share this article

Do McLaren Face the Truth of F1 - That if You Want Win, You Can't Always Be Fair?

The McLaren team are fully conscious of the challenge they confront 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 provide their two drivers the optimal opportunity they can and run the team on a basis of fairness and balance.

"This is the approach we intend racing. This remains the method in which we approach racing, and we aim to remain equitable, and we intend to maintain equal treatment to our drivers."

Team boss Andrea Stella is a veteran of many title battles. He won the championship as engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver recovered 17 points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to secure the title, while the McLaren team imploded.

And he lost the title as race engineer to Alonso in 2010, when the Ferrari team messed up their strategy at the final race of the championship and enabled Vettel and the Red Bull team to sneak the championship from their grasp.

Stella said after the Grand Prix in Austin: "We look at the next five races as chances to extend the lead on Max. And when it involves having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will only be led by the numbers."

"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 title. So we're not going to close the door unless this is closed by mathematics."

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

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

In F1, it's typically the case that if a constructor gets it wrong at the beginning of a new rules cycle, it can take a long time to recover. And if they succeed, that advantage can continue for some time - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules were modified.

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

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

The Red Bull team have caught up since bringing their new floor and front wing at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team boss Andrea Stella stated he believed Lando Norris had the speed to compete for the win in Texas had he not ended up behind Leclerc.

"We just have to continue optimising the car performance and continue delivering strong race weekends. And from this point of view, if you consider a race like Baku City Circuit, we failed to optimize the car's potential and we didn't execute a flawless performance."

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

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, it's uncertain the question has an completely correct basis. It's correct that both Hamilton and Sainz had slightly difficult first halves of the season, in different ways, and that they are now faring much better.

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

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

He is currently much closer than he previously. He is regularly qualifying within a few hundredths of a second of Leclerc, 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 favourite circuits, he was a second slower than Leclerc when the Monegasque made his tire change, and dropped 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the race.

Looking back, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even currently, it's difficult to claim that on average Leclerc has hasn't been the better Ferrari driver this year.

Both Hamilton and Sainz have discussed how difficult it is to change constructors, and we have to take them at their word.

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

There is a lot for a racing driver to get their head around when they change constructors, as Lewis Hamilton has described many times this season. But not all struggle in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for example, was on it from the start of the 2023 when he transferred to the Aston Martin team. 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?

Until the cars are driven for the first time in pre-season testing next season, nobody will know how the constructors are performing next year.

The initial session, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is behind closed doors because the constructors preferred to understand their first running of the new engines without the scrutiny of the media.

So the pair of sessions in Sakhir on February 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the first time some kind of sense of relative performance becomes apparent.

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