🔗 Share this article

Must McLaren Face the Truth of F1 - That if You Want Win, You Can't Always Play Fair?

McLaren are fully conscious of the difficulty they encounter with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this year, but they don't believe to modify their approach to managing the team.

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

"This is the approach we plan competing. This remains the way in which we tackle racing, and we aim to stay equitable, and we want to maintain equal treatment to both drivers."

Team principal Andrea Stella is a veteran of numerous title battles. He claimed the championship as race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari racer made up 17 points under the previous points system in two Grands Prix to win the title, while McLaren imploded.

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

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

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

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

Every team this season have had to confront the dilemma of how long to concentrate on their 2025 season car while also making sure they are as ready 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 catch up. And if they succeed, that benefit can continue for some time - look at Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations changed.

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

They continued to develop it for a while, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when looking at the bang for buck they were achieving on their 2025 season car versus the 2026 car, it became an easy decision to redirect attention to the following season.

Red Bull have closed the gap since introducing their updated floor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car remains competitive - team principal Stella said he thought Norris had the speed to challenge for the victory in Austin had he not ended up behind Leclerc.

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

"Therefore we have a large 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?

Initially, I'm not sure the question has an entirely correct premise. It's correct that each of Hamilton and Sainz had somewhat sticky opening phases of the season, in varying manners, and that they are now performing much better.

Sainz and Albon currently appear quite balanced. However, it's less certain that, in Hamilton's case, he is yet the "equal" of Charles Leclerc - or not consistently, at least.

Lewis Hamilton has not beaten Charles Leclerc frequently at all this year, either in qualifying or race.

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

This last weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite circuits, he was a second behind his teammate when the Monaco driver made his tire change, and lost thirteen seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

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

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

Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is expecting the new rules next season will suit him; he has never really enjoyed these venturi cars.

There is a lot for a racing driver to get their head around when they switch teams, as Lewis Hamilton has described many times this year. But not all struggle in this way.

Alonso, for example, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I suspect the majority in F1 would expect not.

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

Until the cars run for the first time in pre-season testing next season, no-one will understand how the teams are looking next year.

The initial session, 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 two tests in Sakhir on 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the initial occasion a certain indication of relative performance becomes apparent.

But, as always, it's not until the first race that the true and accurate situation will become clear.