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

McLaren are fully conscious of the difficulty they face with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this year, but they don't believe to alter their strategy to running the team.

They will persist to provide their two drivers the optimal opportunity they can and run the team on a foundation of equity and equanimity.

"This represents the way we plan competing. This is the method in which we tackle competition, and we aim to stay fair, and we intend to maintain equal treatment to both drivers."

Team boss Stella is a seasoned expert of many title battles. He claimed the title as engineer to Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari driver made up 17 points under the previous points system in two Grands Prix to win the championship, while the McLaren team imploded.

And he lost the title as engineer to Fernando Alonso in 2010, when Ferrari messed up their race strategy at the final race of the championship and allowed Vettel and Red Bull to snatch the title from their grasp.

Stella said after the race in Austin: "We look at the remaining five Grands Prix as opportunities to extend the gap on Max. And when it comes to having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will exclusively be led by mathematics."

"We lean on the experience. I can remember at least 2007, the 2010 season, in which you go to the last race and it's in fact the third-placed driver that claims the title. So we're not going to close the door unless this is closed by the calculations."

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

All teams this year have had to confront the conundrum of for how long to concentrate on their 2025 season car while also ensuring they are as ready as they can be for the significant regulation change scheduled for the 2026 season.

In F1, it's usually the case that if a team gets it wrong at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a long time to recover. And if they succeed, that advantage can last for a while - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules were modified.

McLaren started this season 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 experiencing reduced benefits. So when looking at the value for money they were getting on their 2025 car compared to 2026, it became an straightforward decision to switch focus to the following season.

Red Bull have caught up since introducing their updated underfloor and front wing at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team principal Stella stated he believed Norris had the pace to challenge for the win in Texas had he not ended up behind Charles Leclerc.

"We just have to continue maximising the car performance and keep executing good race weekends. And from this perspective, if you consider a Grand Prix like Baku, we failed to optimize the performance and we didn't execute a flawless performance."

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

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

Initially, I'm not sure the inquiry has an completely accurate basis. It's correct that each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly difficult first halves of the championship, in different ways, and that they are currently performing much better.

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

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

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

This previous weekend in Texas, on one of Hamilton's favourite tracks, he was a full second slower than Leclerc when the Monaco driver completed his pit stop, and lost 13 seconds over the rest of the race.

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

Each of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have talked about how challenging it is to change constructors, and we have to accept their statements.

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

There is a lot for a driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Lewis Hamilton has described repeatedly this year. But not every driver struggle in this manner.

Alonso, for example, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 season when he transferred to the Aston Martin team. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he switched teams? I suspect the majority in Formula 1 would expect not.

How Soon Can We Determine The Coming Season's Team Performance?

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

The initial session, in Barcelona on 26-30 January, is behind closed doors because the teams preferred to understand their initial track time of the new engines without the prying eyes of the press.

So the two tests in Bahrain on February 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the first time a certain sense of relative performance emerges.

But, as ever, it's only at the season opener that the true and accurate situation will become clear.