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

McLaren are well aware of the challenge they encounter with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this year, but they don't believe to alter their approach to managing the team.

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

"This is the manner we intend racing. This remains the method in which we approach competition, and we aim to remain fair, and we intend to maintain equality to our drivers."

Team principal Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of numerous title battles. He claimed the title as race engineer to Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari driver recovered seventeen points under the old scoring system in two races to secure the title, while McLaren imploded.

And he lost the championship as race engineer to Fernando Alonso in 2010, when Ferrari messed up their strategy at the last Grand Prix of the season and enabled Vettel and Red Bull to sneak the championship from under their noses.

Andrea Stella commented following the Grand Prix in Austin: "We view the remaining five Grands Prix as chances to extend the gap on Max. And when it involves having to make a call as to a driver, this will only be led by the numbers."

"We rely on the experience. I can recall at least the 2007 season, 2010, in which you go to the final Grand Prix and it's in fact the third-placed driver that wins the title. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is determined by mathematics."

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

All teams this season have had to face the conundrum of how long to focus on their 2025 car while also making sure they are as ready as they can be for the significant regulation change scheduled for 2026.

In F1, it's typically the case that if a team gets it wrong at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they succeed, that benefit can last for a while - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations changed.

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

They continued to improve it for a period, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when looking at the bang for buck they were getting on their 2025 car versus 2026, it became an straightforward choice to redirect attention to next year.

Red Bull have caught up since bringing their updated floor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren car remains competitive - team boss Stella stated he thought Lando Norris had the pace to challenge for the victory in Texas had he not finished behind Leclerc.

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

"So definitely we have a large opportunity, and the result of this season and the driver's title is in our control. It's not placed in someone else's hands."

Driver Transfers: How Challenging Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, it's uncertain the inquiry has an entirely accurate basis. It's correct that each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat difficult opening phases of the championship, in varying manners, and that they are now faring much better.

Carlos Sainz and Albon do now look quite balanced. However, it's less certain that, in Hamilton's case, he is yet the "match" of Leclerc - or not consistently, anyway.

Hamilton has failed to outperform Leclerc very often at all this year, either in qualifying sessions or Grand Prix.

He is currently significantly nearer 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 mid-season break.

This previous weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second behind Leclerc when the Monaco driver completed his pit stop, and dropped thirteen seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Leclerc was on the best strategy. Nevertheless, over the season, and even currently, it's hard to argue that on average Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari racer this year.

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

Lewis Hamilton would not say even now that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the regulation changes next season will suit him; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a great deal for a driver to understand and adapt to when they change constructors, as Lewis Hamilton has explained repeatedly this year. But not every driver faces difficulties in this manner.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was performing well from the start of the 2023 when he transferred to Aston Martin. And would Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I suspect the majority in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

How Soon Can We Determine Next Year's Team Performance?

Until the F1 cars run for the first time in winter testing next year, nobody will understand how the teams are performing next year.

The initial session, in Barcelona on January 26-30, is behind closed doors because the teams wanted to get their heads around their first running 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 some kind of indication of relative performance becomes apparent.

But, as ever, it's only at the first race that the complete and precise picture will become clear.