🔗 Share this article

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

The McLaren team are fully conscious of the difficulty they confront with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this season, but they don't believe to alter their approach 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 equanimity.

"This is the manner we plan racing. This is the way in which we approach racing, and we want to stay fair, and we intend to maintain equality to our drivers."

Team principal Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of many championship fights. He won the championship as race engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari racer made up seventeen points under the previous points system in two Grands Prix to secure the championship, while McLaren imploded.

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

Andrea Stella commented following the Grand Prix in Austin: "We view the remaining five Grands Prix as opportunities to extend the gap on Max. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a team driver, this will only be determined by the numbers."

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

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

All teams 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 ready as they can be for the major regulation change scheduled for 2026.

In F1, it's usually the case that if a team gets it wrong at the beginning of a new regulation period, 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 rules changed.

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

They did continue to improve 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 choice to redirect attention to the following season.

Red Bull have caught up since introducing their updated underfloor and front wing at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team principal Andrea Stella stated he believed Norris had the pace to challenge for the victory in Austin had he not finished behind Charles Leclerc.

"We just have to keep maximising the performance and keep executing good weekends. And from this point of view, if you consider a Grand Prix like Baku, we didn't maximise the car's potential and we didn't execute a perfect race."

"Therefore we have a significant opportunity, and the outcome of this season and the drivers' championship is in our control. It's not in another team's control."

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, it's uncertain the inquiry has an completely accurate basis. It's true that both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky opening phases of the championship, in varying manners, and that they are now performing significantly improved.

Sainz and Albon do now look quite balanced. However, it's not so clear that, in Hamilton's case, he is yet the "match" of Charles Leclerc - or not regularly, at least.

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

He is now much closer than he previously. He is consistently setting times within a few hundredths of a second of his teammate, 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 favourite tracks, he was a full second slower than his teammate when the Monegasque completed his pit stop, and dropped 13 seconds over the rest of the race.

In hindsight, Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Nevertheless, over the season, and even now, it's hard to claim that on average Leclerc has not been the superior Ferrari driver this season.

Both 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 claim even currently that he was completely adjusted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the new rules next season will suit him; he has never really enjoyed these venturi cars.

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

Fernando Alonso, for example, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 when he moved to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I suspect most in F1 would expect not.

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

Before the cars run for the initial time in pre-season testing next season, nobody will know how the teams are performing next year.

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

So the two tests 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 ever, it's not until the season opener that the true and accurate situation will become clear.