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Do McLaren Accept Reality of F1 - That to Win, You Can't Always Play Fair?

The McLaren team are well aware of the difficulty they encounter with Max 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 give their two drivers the optimal opportunity they can and run the team on a basis of equity and balance.

"This is the approach we intend competing. This remains the method in which we tackle competition, and we aim to remain fair, and we intend to apply equal treatment to our drivers."

Team boss Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of numerous title battles. He claimed the championship as race engineer to Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari driver recovered seventeen points under the previous points system in two Grands Prix to win the championship, while the McLaren team collapsed.

And he lost the championship as race engineer to Alonso in 2010, when Ferrari 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 championship from under their noses.

Andrea Stella stated following the Grand Prix in Austin: "We look at the remaining five Grands Prix as opportunities to extend the gap on Verstappen. And when it comes to 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 2007, the 2010 season, in which you go to the last race and it's actually the [driver in] third [place] that wins the title. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is determined by mathematics."

What Prompted McLaren to Cease Development on The Current Car?

All teams this season have had to face the dilemma of for how long to concentrate on their 2025 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 usually the situation that if a constructor gets it wrong at the beginning of a new regulation period, it can take a considerable period to catch up. And if they succeed, that advantage can continue for some time - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the last time the regulations were modified.

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

They continued to develop it for a period, but were finding diminishing returns. So when evaluating the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 season car compared to the 2026 car, it became an easy choice to redirect attention to next year.

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

"We must keep maximising the performance and continue executing good race weekends. And from this perspective, if you think of a race like Baku, we didn't maximise the performance and we didn't deliver a perfect performance."

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

Driver Transfers: How Challenging Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, I'm not sure the inquiry has an completely accurate basis. It's true that each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat sticky first halves of the championship, in different ways, and that they are currently faring much better.

Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon currently look quite balanced. However, it's less certain that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is currently the "equal" of Charles Leclerc - or not regularly, at least.

Lewis Hamilton has failed to outperform Leclerc very often at all this season, either in qualifying sessions or Grand Prix.

He is now much closer than he was. He is regularly qualifying 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 Texas, on one of Hamilton's favourite circuits, he was a full second slower than his teammate when the Monaco driver completed his pit stop, and lost 13 seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

Looking back, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal strategy. Regardless, over the championship, and even now, it's difficult to argue that on balance Leclerc has not been the superior Ferrari driver this season.

Both Lewis Hamilton and Sainz have discussed how difficult it is to switch teams, 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 particularly liked these venturi cars.

There is a lot for a racing 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 way.

Fernando Alonso, for example, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 season when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I suspect the majority in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know Next Year's Team Performance?

Before the cars run for the first time in winter testing next year, no-one will understand how the teams are performing next year.

The initial session, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is behind closed doors because the constructors wanted to get their heads around their initial track time of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the media.

So the two tests in Sakhir on February 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the initial occasion a certain sense of comparative speed becomes apparent.

But, as always, it's only at the season opener that the complete and precise situation will emerge.