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Must McLaren Accept Reality of F1 - That if You Want Win, It's Not Always Possible to Be Fair?

The McLaren team are fully conscious of the difficulty they encounter with Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this season, but they don't believe to modify their strategy to running the team.

They will continue to provide both drivers the optimal opportunity they can and operate the team on a foundation of fairness and balance.

"This is the way we plan competing. This remains the way in which we tackle competition, and we want to remain fair, and we want to maintain equality to both drivers."

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

And he missed out on the championship as race engineer to Alonso in the 2010 season, when the Ferrari team made errors in their race strategy at the final race of the season and enabled Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull to snatch the title from under their noses.

Andrea Stella said after the Grand Prix in Texas: "We look at the next five races as chances to increase the gap on Verstappen. And when it involves having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will exclusively be determined by the numbers."

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

What Prompted McLaren to Cease Upgrades on The Current 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 ready as they can be for the major regulation change coming for 2026.

In Formula 1, it's usually the situation that if a constructor makes mistakes at the start of a new regulation period, it can take a considerable period to catch up. And if they succeed, that advantage can last for a while - consider the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations changed.

The McLaren team began this season with the best car, after putting a lot of innovation into their 2025 season design.

They did continue to develop it for a while, but were finding reduced benefits. So when evaluating the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 season car compared to 2026, it became an straightforward decision to switch focus to the following season.

Red Bull have closed the gap since bringing their updated floor and front wing at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team boss Andrea Stella stated he believed Lando Norris had the pace to compete for the victory in Texas had he not ended up behind Leclerc.

"We just have to continue optimising the performance and continue executing good weekends. And from this perspective, if you think of a race like Baku, we failed to optimize the performance and we didn't execute a perfect race."

"Therefore we have a significant chance, and the result of this season and the driver's title is in our hands. It's not in another team's control."

Driver Transfers: How Challenging Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, it's uncertain the inquiry has an completely correct premise. It's true that each of Hamilton and Sainz had somewhat sticky opening phases of the championship, in different ways, and that they are currently performing significantly improved.

Carlos Sainz and Albon do now appear very even. However, it's not so clear that, in Hamilton's case, he is currently the "match" of Charles Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

Lewis Hamilton has not beaten Leclerc very often at all this season, either in qualifying sessions or Grand Prix.

He is currently much closer than he was. He is regularly qualifying within a few hundredths of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying battles it's 4-2 to Leclerc since the summer break.

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite tracks, he was a full second slower than Leclerc when the Monaco driver made his pit stop, and lost thirteen seconds over the remaining portion of the race.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the best strategy. Regardless, over the season, and even currently, it's hard to claim that on balance Charles Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari racer this year.

Each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have talked about how difficult it is to switch teams, and we have to accept their statements.

Hamilton would not claim even now that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the regulation changes next season will benefit his driving style; he has never really enjoyed these venturi cars.

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

Alonso, for example, was on it from the start of the 2023 season when he transferred to the Aston Martin team. And would Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I believe most in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

How Soon Can We Determine Next Year's Team Performance?

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

The first test, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is private because the teams wanted to get their heads around their initial track time of the new engines without the prying eyes of the media.

So the pair of sessions in Bahrain on February 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the first time some kind of indication of relative performance becomes apparent.

But, as always, it's not until the season opener that the complete and precise picture will become clear.