🔗 Share this article

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

The McLaren team are fully conscious of the challenge they encounter with Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this season, but they see no reason to change their method to managing the team.

They will continue to give both drivers the best chance they can and run the team on a foundation of fairness and balance.

"This represents the way we intend competing. This remains the philosophy in which we tackle competition, and we aim to remain fair, and we want to apply equality to our drivers."

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

And he missed out on the title as race engineer to Alonso in the 2010 season, when the Ferrari team made errors in their race strategy at the last Grand Prix of the championship and enabled Vettel and Red Bull to sneak the title from under their noses.

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

"We lean on the experience. I can remember at least the 2007 season, 2010, in which you go to the last race and it's actually 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 Stop Upgrades on This Year's Car?

Every team this year have had to face the conundrum of for how long to concentrate on their 2025 season car while also ensuring they are as prepared as they can be for the significant regulation change scheduled for 2026.

In Formula 1, it's typically the situation that if a team gets it wrong at the start of a new regulation period, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they succeed, that advantage can last for a while - look at Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations changed.

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

They continued to improve it for a period, but were finding diminishing returns. So when looking at the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 car versus the 2026 car, it became an straightforward decision to redirect attention to next year.

The Red Bull team have closed the gap since introducing their new underfloor and front wing at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team boss Andrea Stella said he thought Norris had the speed to challenge for the win in Texas had he not finished behind Charles Leclerc.

"We must keep optimising the performance and continue delivering good weekends. And from this perspective, if you consider a Grand Prix like Baku, we failed to optimize the car's potential and we didn't execute a flawless race."

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

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

Initially, I'm not sure the question has an entirely correct basis. It's true that each of Hamilton and Sainz had somewhat sticky opening phases of the championship, in varying manners, 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 currently the "equal" of Charles Leclerc - or not consistently, at least.

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

He is now much closer than he previously. He is regularly setting times within a small fraction of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Charles Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's favourite circuits, he was a second slower than his teammate when the Monegasque completed his pit stop, and dropped 13 seconds over the rest of the race.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal strategy. Regardless, over the season, and even currently, it's hard to claim that on balance Charles Leclerc has not been the superior Ferrari racer this season.

Each of Lewis Hamilton and Sainz have discussed how challenging it is to change constructors, and we have to take them at their word.

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the new rules next season will suit him; he has never particularly liked these venturi cars.

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

Fernando Alonso, for example, was on it from the start of the 2023 season when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I believe the majority in F1 would expect not.

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

Until the F1 cars run for the initial time in pre-season testing next year, nobody will know how the teams are looking 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 first running of the power unit changes without the scrutiny of the press.

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

But, as always, it's not until the first race that the complete and precise situation will emerge.