🔗 Share this article

Must McLaren Accept Reality of F1 - That to Win, You Can't Always Play Fair?

McLaren are well aware of the difficulty they confront with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this year, but they see no reason to alter their approach to running the team.

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

"This represents the way we plan racing. This is the philosophy in which we approach racing, and we aim to remain equitable, and we want to apply equal treatment to our drivers."

Team principal Andrea Stella is a veteran of many title battles. He claimed the championship as engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver recovered seventeen points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to win the title, while the McLaren team imploded.

And he missed out on the championship as race engineer to Fernando Alonso in 2010, when Ferrari messed up their strategy at the last Grand Prix of the season and allowed Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull to snatch the title from under their noses.

Stella stated following the Grand Prix in Texas: "We view the next five races as chances to increase the gap on Max. And when it involves having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will only be led by mathematics."

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

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

Every team this season have had to confront the dilemma of 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 Formula 1, it's typically the situation that if a team gets it wrong at the beginning of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to recover. And if they get it right, that advantage can continue for some time - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules changed.

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

They did continue to improve it for a period, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when looking at the value for money they were getting on their 2025 season car compared to the 2026 car, it became an easy decision to switch focus to the following season.

Red Bull have closed the gap since bringing their updated underfloor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car remains competitive - team principal Stella stated he believed Lando Norris had the pace to compete for the win in Austin had he not finished behind Leclerc.

"We just have to continue maximising the performance and keep executing strong race weekends. And from this point of view, if you think of a race like Baku City Circuit, we failed to optimize the car's potential and we didn't deliver a perfect performance."

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

Team Changes: How Challenging Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, I'm not sure the inquiry has an completely correct basis. It's correct that both Hamilton and Sainz had somewhat difficult first halves of the championship, in different ways, and that they are currently faring significantly improved.

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

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 was. He is consistently qualifying within a small fraction of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying battles it's 4-2 to Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred circuits, he was a full second slower than Leclerc when the Monegasque made his pit stop, and dropped thirteen seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the best race strategy. Regardless, over the championship, and even currently, it's difficult to claim that on balance Charles Leclerc has hasn't been the better Ferrari driver this year.

Both Lewis Hamilton and Sainz have discussed how challenging 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 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 racing driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Hamilton has explained repeatedly this season. But not every driver faces difficulties in this way.

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

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

Until the cars run for the first time in winter testing next season, nobody will know how the teams are looking next year.

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

So the two tests in Sakhir on 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the first time some kind of indication of comparative speed emerges.

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