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

McLaren are well aware of the challenge they face with Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this season, but they see no reason to alter their approach to managing the team.

They will persist to provide their two drivers the best chance they can and run the team on a foundation of fairness and equanimity.

"This represents the way we intend competing. This remains the philosophy in which we approach racing, and we aim to remain equitable, and we intend to maintain equal treatment to both drivers."

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

And he lost the title as engineer to Alonso in 2010, when Ferrari made errors in their strategy at the final race of the championship and allowed Vettel and the Red Bull team to sneak the championship from under their noses.

Stella commented after the race in Austin: "We view the remaining five Grands Prix as chances to increase the gap on Verstappen. And when it involves having to make a call as to a driver, this will only be determined by the numbers."

"We lean on the past experience. I can recall at least 2007, 2010, in which you reach the final Grand Prix and it's in fact the third-placed driver that claims the title. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is determined by the calculations."

Why Did McLaren Cease Upgrades on The Current Car?

Every team this season have had to confront the dilemma of for how long to concentrate on their 2025 season car while also ensuring they are as prepared as they can be for the major rules overhaul scheduled for the 2026 season.

In F1, it's usually the situation that if a team gets it wrong at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they get it right, that benefit can continue for some time - look at Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations were modified.

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

They continued to improve it for a while, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when evaluating the bang for buck they were getting on their 2025 season car compared to 2026, it became an easy choice to switch focus to the following season.

Red Bull have caught up since introducing their new underfloor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team boss Stella stated he believed Lando Norris had the speed to compete for the victory in Texas had he not ended up following Charles Leclerc.

"We must keep optimising the car performance and continue executing strong race weekends. And from this perspective, if you think of a race like Baku, we failed to optimize the performance and we didn't deliver a flawless race."

"Therefore we have a significant opportunity, and the result of this championship and the driver's title is in our control. It's not placed in someone else's hands."

Team Changes: How Challenging Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, it's uncertain the question has an entirely accurate basis. It's true that both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky first halves of the championship, in varying manners, and that they are currently performing significantly improved.

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

Hamilton has not beaten Charles Leclerc very often at all this season, either in qualifying or race.

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

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second behind his teammate when the Monaco driver completed his tire change, and dropped 13 seconds over the rest of the race.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Regardless, over the championship, and even currently, it's hard to claim that on average Leclerc has hasn't been the better Ferrari driver this year.

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

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was completely adjusted to the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the regulation changes next season will benefit his driving style; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a lot for a driver to get their head around when they change constructors, as Hamilton has explained many times this year. But not all faces difficulties in this manner.

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 Formula 1 would expect not.

How Soon Can We Determine The Coming Season's Competitive Order?

Before the F1 cars run for the first time in pre-season testing next year, no-one will know how the constructors are performing next year.

The first test, in Barcelona on January 26-30, is private because the teams preferred to understand their initial track time of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the press.

So the pair of sessions in Sakhir on February 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the initial occasion a certain sense of relative performance emerges.

But, as always, it's only at the first race that the true and accurate situation will emerge.