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Do 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 difficulty they confront with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this year, but they see no reason to modify their method to running the team.

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

"This represents the way we intend racing. This is the way in which we tackle racing, and we want to stay fair, and we want to apply equal treatment to both drivers."

Team boss Stella is a veteran of numerous championship fights. He won the title as engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari racer recovered seventeen points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to secure the title, while McLaren collapsed.

And he missed out on the title as engineer to Alonso in 2010, when the Ferrari team messed up their race strategy at the final race of the season and enabled Sebastian Vettel and the Red Bull team to snatch the championship from under their noses.

Stella stated after the race in Texas: "We look at the next five races as chances to extend the gap on Verstappen. And when it involves having to make a decision as to a driver, this will exclusively be led by mathematics."

"We rely on the experience. I can remember at least the 2007 season, the 2010 season, in which you go to the last race and it's in fact the third-placed driver that claims the title. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is closed by mathematics."

Why Did McLaren Stop Development on The Current Car?

Every team this year have had to confront the dilemma of how long to concentrate on their 2025 season car while also ensuring they are as ready as they can be for the significant rules overhaul coming for the 2026 season.

In Formula 1, it's typically the situation that if a team gets it wrong at the beginning of a new rules cycle, it can take a long time to recover. And if they get it right, that advantage can continue for some time - consider 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 investing a lot of innovation into their 2025 season design.

They did continue to improve it for a period, but were finding diminishing returns. So when evaluating the value for money they were getting on their 2025 car versus the 2026 car, it became an easy decision to switch focus to the following season.

Red Bull have closed the gap since bringing their updated floor and front wing at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team boss Andrea Stella stated he thought Lando Norris had the pace to compete for the victory in Austin had he not finished behind Charles Leclerc.

"We must continue optimising the car performance and continue executing good weekends. And from this point of view, if you think of a race like Baku, we failed to optimize the car's potential and we didn't execute a perfect performance."

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

Driver Transfers: How Challenging Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, I'm not sure the question has an completely correct basis. It's correct that each of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat difficult opening phases of the championship, in different ways, and that they are currently performing much better.

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

Hamilton has failed to outperform Leclerc frequently at all this season, either in qualifying or race.

He is now significantly nearer than he previously. He is consistently qualifying within a few hundredths of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying battles it's 4-2 to Leclerc since the summer break.

This previous weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite tracks, he was a second slower than Leclerc when the Monegasque completed his tire change, and lost 13 seconds over the rest of the race.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Regardless, over the championship, and even now, it's hard to claim that on balance Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari driver this year.

Each of Lewis Hamilton and Sainz have discussed how difficult it is to change constructors, 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 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 get their head around when they change constructors, as Hamilton has explained many times this year. But not every driver struggle in this manner.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 when he transferred to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen struggle if he switched teams? I believe the majority in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know The Coming Season's Team Performance?

Until the F1 cars are driven for the initial time in pre-season testing next year, nobody will know how the teams are looking next year.

The initial session, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is behind closed doors because the teams 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 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 ever, it's only at the first race that the complete and precise picture will emerge.