🔗 Share this article

Do McLaren Face the Truth of F1 - That to Win, You Can't Always Be Fair?

The McLaren team are well aware of the difficulty they encounter with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this year, but they see no reason to modify their method to managing the team.

They will persist to provide their two drivers the best chance they can and run the team on a foundation of fairness and balance.

"This is the approach we plan racing. This remains the philosophy in which we tackle competition, and we want to remain fair, and we intend to maintain equality to our drivers."

Team principal Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of numerous championship fights. He won the title as engineer to Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari driver made up 17 points under the old scoring system in two races to win the championship, while the McLaren team collapsed.

And he lost the championship as race engineer to Alonso in 2010, when the Ferrari team messed up their strategy at the last Grand Prix of the season and allowed Vettel and Red Bull to sneak the championship from their grasp.

Stella commented after the Grand Prix in Texas: "We view the next five races as opportunities to extend the gap on Max. And when it involves having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will only be determined by the numbers."

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

Why Did McLaren Stop 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 car while also ensuring they are as prepared as they can be for the significant rules overhaul coming for 2026.

In Formula 1, it's typically the situation 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 get it right, that benefit can last for a while - consider Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the last time the regulations were modified.

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

They continued to develop it for a while, but were experiencing diminishing returns. So when looking at the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 season car versus 2026, it became an easy decision to switch focus to the following season.

Red Bull have caught up since introducing their new underfloor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren car remains competitive - team principal Stella said he thought Lando Norris had the speed to compete for the victory in Texas had he not finished following Leclerc.

"We must keep maximising the car performance and continue executing good race weekends. And from this point of view, if you think of a race like Baku, we failed to optimize the car's potential and we didn't execute a flawless performance."

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

Driver Transfers: How Difficult Is It to Switch Teams?

Initially, it's uncertain the inquiry has an completely correct premise. It's correct that both Hamilton and Sainz had slightly difficult first halves of the season, in varying manners, and that they are currently performing significantly improved.

Sainz and Albon currently look very even. However, it's not so clear that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is currently the "equal" of Charles Leclerc - or not consistently, at least.

Hamilton has failed to outperform Leclerc very often at all this season, either in qualifying sessions 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 Texas, 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 lost 13 seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the best strategy. Regardless, over the championship, and even now, it's hard to argue that on balance Charles Leclerc has not been the superior Ferrari racer this year.

Each of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have talked about how challenging it is to switch teams, and we have to take them at their word.

Hamilton would not say even now that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is expecting the regulation changes next year will benefit his driving style; he has never really enjoyed these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a lot for a driver to get their head around when they change constructors, as Hamilton has described many times this season. But not every driver faces difficulties in this way.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 when he moved to Aston Martin. And would Verstappen struggle if he switched teams? I suspect most in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

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

Before the cars are driven for the initial time in winter testing next season, no-one will understand how the constructors are performing in the upcoming season.

The first test, in Barcelona on January 26-30, is behind closed doors because the teams preferred to understand their first running of the power unit changes without the scrutiny of the press.

So the pair of sessions in Bahrain on 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the initial occasion a certain sense of comparative speed becomes apparent.

But, as always, it's not until the season opener that the true and accurate picture will emerge.