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

The McLaren team are fully conscious of the challenge they encounter with Max Verstappen and Red Bull in the championship battle this season, but they see no reason to alter their method to managing the team.

They will continue to give their two drivers the best chance they can and operate the team on a basis of equity and equanimity.

"This represents the way we intend competing. This is the way in which we tackle competition, and we aim to stay fair, and we intend to apply equality to our drivers."

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

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

Stella commented after the Grand Prix in Austin: "We look at the next five races as chances to extend the gap on Max. And when it comes to having to make a decision as to a driver, this will exclusively be led by mathematics."

"We lean 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 in fact the third-placed driver that claims the championship. So we're not going to close the door unless this is determined by mathematics."

What Prompted McLaren to Stop Development on The Current Car?

All teams this season have had to face the dilemma of how long to focus on their 2025 car while also making sure they are as ready as they can be for the significant rules overhaul coming for the 2026 season.

In Formula 1, it's typically the situation that if a constructor makes mistakes at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a long time to catch up. And if they succeed, that benefit can last for a while - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations were modified.

McLaren began this season with the best car, after investing a lot of technical development into their 2025 design.

They continued to develop it for a while, but were experiencing reduced benefits. So when evaluating the value for money they were getting on their 2025 car compared to 2026, it became an easy decision to redirect attention to the following season.

The Red Bull team have closed the gap since bringing their new underfloor and front wing at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team principal Andrea Stella stated he believed Lando Norris had the pace to challenge for the win in Austin had he not finished behind Charles Leclerc.

"We just have to continue optimising the car performance and continue delivering good race weekends. And from this perspective, if you consider a Grand Prix like Baku, we didn't maximise the performance and we didn't deliver a flawless 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 someone else's hands."

Team Changes: How Challenging Is It to Change Constructors?

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

Sainz and Albon do now appear quite balanced. However, it's less certain that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is yet the "match" of Charles Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

Hamilton has not beaten Charles Leclerc very often at all this year, either in qualifying or Grand Prix.

He is currently much closer than he previously. He is consistently qualifying within a few hundredths of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying battles it's four-two to Charles Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This last weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred circuits, he was a second behind Leclerc when the Monegasque made his pit stop, and lost thirteen seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even currently, it's hard to argue that on average Charles Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari racer this season.

Each of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have talked about how difficult it is to change constructors, and we have to take them at their word.

Hamilton would not say even currently that he was completely adjusted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the new rules next season will suit him; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

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

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

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

Before the F1 cars are driven for the first time in pre-season testing next year, no-one will understand how the teams are performing in the upcoming season.

The first test, in Barcelona on January 26-30, is private because the constructors wanted to understand their first running 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 some kind of sense of comparative speed emerges.

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