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

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

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

"This is the approach we plan competing. This is the way in which we tackle racing, and we aim to remain equitable, and we want to maintain equal treatment to both drivers."

Team boss Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of many title battles. He won the title as engineer to Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari racer made up seventeen points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to win the championship, while McLaren collapsed.

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

Stella stated following the Grand Prix in Texas: "We look at the next five races as chances to increase 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 2007, 2010, in which you go to the last race and it's in fact the [driver in] third [place] that wins the title. So we're not going to close the door unless this is closed by mathematics."

What Prompted McLaren to Stop Development on The Current Car?

All teams this season have had to confront the dilemma of for how long to concentrate on their 2025 car while also making sure they are as ready as they can be for the major regulation change scheduled for 2026.

In F1, it's usually the situation that if a constructor makes mistakes at the beginning of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to catch up. And if they get it right, that benefit can last for a while - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations were modified.

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

They did continue to develop it for a while, but were finding diminishing returns. So when looking at the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 car compared to the 2026 car, it became an straightforward choice to switch focus to next year.

The Red Bull team have caught up since introducing their updated floor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team principal Andrea Stella said he believed Norris had the pace to compete for the victory in Texas had he not finished behind Leclerc.

"We must keep maximising the car performance and keep executing good weekends. And from this perspective, if you think of a Grand Prix like Baku City Circuit, we didn't maximise the performance and we didn't execute a flawless performance."

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

Driver Transfers: How Challenging Is It to Switch Teams?

Initially, it's uncertain the question has an completely correct basis. It's true that both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky first halves of the season, in varying manners, and that they are currently faring much better.

Sainz and Albon currently look very even. However, it's less certain that, in Hamilton's case, he is yet the "match" of Charles Leclerc - or not consistently, anyway.

Hamilton has failed to outperform Charles 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 small fraction of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying battles it's four-two to Charles Leclerc since the summer break.

This last weekend in Texas, on one of Hamilton's favourite circuits, he was a second behind Leclerc when the Monegasque completed his pit stop, and dropped 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the race.

Looking back, Leclerc was on the best race strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even currently, it's difficult to argue that on average Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari racer this year.

Each of Lewis Hamilton and Sainz have discussed how challenging it is to switch teams, and we have to accept their statements.

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was completely adjusted to Ferrari - and he is expecting the regulation changes next season 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 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 Aston Martin. And would Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I believe the majority in Formula 1 would expect not.

When Will We Know Next Year's Competitive Order?

Before the cars are driven for the initial time in winter testing next year, nobody will know how the constructors are looking in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Catalunya on 26-30 January, is private because the teams preferred to understand their initial track time of the new engines without the scrutiny of the media.

So the pair of sessions in Sakhir on February 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the first time some kind of indication of relative performance emerges.

But, as ever, it's not until the season opener that the complete and precise picture will emerge.