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Must McLaren Accept Reality 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 Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this season, but they don't believe to alter their strategy to managing the team.

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

"This is the approach we plan competing. This is the method in which we approach racing, and we want to stay fair, and we intend to apply equality to our drivers."

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

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

Stella said following the race in Austin: "We view the next five races as opportunities to extend the gap on Max. And when it comes to having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will exclusively be led by the numbers."

"We lean on the past experience. I can recall at least 2007, 2010, in which you reach the last race 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."

What Prompted McLaren to Stop Development on This Year's Car?

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

In F1, it's typically the situation that if a constructor makes mistakes at the beginning of a new regulation period, it can take a considerable period to catch up. And if they get it right, that advantage can continue for some time - consider the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules were modified.

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

They did continue to develop it for a while, but were experiencing reduced benefits. So when evaluating the bang for buck they were achieving on their 2025 car versus 2026, it became an easy choice to switch focus to next year.

The Red Bull team have caught up since introducing their updated floor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team boss Stella stated he thought Norris had the speed to challenge for the victory in Austin had he not ended up following Leclerc.

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

"So definitely we have a large chance, and the result of this championship and the drivers' championship is in our hands. It's not in someone else's hands."

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, I'm not sure the inquiry has an completely correct premise. It's true that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly difficult opening phases of the championship, in varying manners, and that they are now performing much better.

Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon do now appear very even. However, it's less certain that, in Hamilton's case, he is yet the "equal" of Charles Leclerc - or not consistently, at least.

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

He is now much closer than he previously. He is consistently qualifying within a small fraction of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying battles it's four-two to Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This last weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second behind Leclerc when the Monegasque made his pit stop, and dropped thirteen seconds over the remaining portion of the race.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the best strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even now, it's difficult to argue that on average Charles Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari driver this season.

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

Hamilton would not say even currently that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is expecting the new rules next season will benefit his driving style; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a lot for a racing driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Hamilton has described many times this year. But not every driver faces difficulties in this manner.

Fernando Alonso, for example, was performing well from the start of the 2023 when he transferred to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I believe most in F1 would expect not.

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

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

The first test, in Catalunya 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 prying eyes of the press.

So the two tests in Sakhir on February 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the first time a certain sense of relative performance becomes apparent.

But, as ever, it's only at the season opener that the true and accurate situation will become clear.