🔗 Share this article

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

The McLaren team are fully conscious of the obstacle they face with Verstappen and Red Bull in the drivers' championship this season, but they see no reason to alter their strategy to running the team.

They will continue to give their two drivers the best chance they can and run the team on a basis of equity and balance.

"This represents the manner we plan racing. This remains the philosophy in which we tackle racing, and we want to stay equitable, and we want to apply equality to both drivers."

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

And he lost the title as engineer to Fernando Alonso in 2010, when the Ferrari team made errors in their race strategy at the last Grand Prix of the championship and enabled Sebastian Vettel and the Red Bull team to snatch the championship from under their noses.

Stella commented following the Grand Prix in Texas: "We look at the next five races as opportunities to extend the lead on Max. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a team driver, this will exclusively be led by mathematics."

"We rely on the past experience. I can remember at least the 2007 season, 2010, in which you reach the final Grand Prix and it's in fact the [driver in] third [place] that claims the championship. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is closed by the calculations."

What Prompted McLaren to Stop Upgrades on The Current Car?

All teams this year have had to confront the dilemma 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 rules overhaul scheduled for the 2026 season.

In F1, it's typically the situation that if a team makes mistakes at the start of a new regulation period, it can take a long time to recover. And if they get it right, that advantage can continue for some time - look at Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations were modified.

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 evaluating the bang for buck they were getting on their 2025 car versus the 2026 car, it became an straightforward decision to redirect attention to the following season.

Red Bull have closed the gap since bringing their new underfloor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren car remains competitive - team boss Stella said he believed Lando Norris had the pace to challenge for the win in Austin had he not finished following Leclerc.

"We must keep maximising the performance and keep delivering good race weekends. And from this point of view, if you consider a race like Baku, we failed to optimize the performance and we didn't execute a perfect performance."

"So definitely we have a significant chance, and the result of this championship and the driver's title is in our control. It's not placed in another team's control."

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, I'm not sure the question has an completely accurate premise. It's true that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat sticky first halves of the championship, in different ways, and that they are currently faring significantly improved.

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

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

He is currently much closer than he previously. He is regularly qualifying within a few hundredths of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This last weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's favourite tracks, he was a second slower than his teammate when the Monegasque made his tire change, and dropped 13 seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even now, it's difficult to claim that on average Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari driver this year.

Both Hamilton and Carlos 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 completely adjusted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the new rules next year 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 explained repeatedly this season. But not all struggle in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 season when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I suspect most in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know The Coming Season's Competitive Order?

Until the cars are driven for the initial time in pre-season testing next season, no-one will know how the teams are performing next year.

The first test, in Barcelona on 26-30 January, is behind closed doors because the teams preferred to get their heads around their initial track time of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the media.

So the pair of sessions in Bahrain on 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the initial occasion a certain indication of comparative speed becomes apparent.

But, as ever, it's not until the season opener that the true and accurate situation will become clear.