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

McLaren are fully conscious of the difficulty they face with Max Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this season, but they don't believe to modify their approach to running the team.

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

"This is the approach we plan competing. This remains the philosophy in which we tackle racing, and we want to stay equitable, and we intend to apply equality to both drivers."

Team boss Stella is a veteran of many championship fights. He won the championship as race engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver made up 17 points under the previous points system in two races to win the championship, while the McLaren team collapsed.

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

Stella stated following the Grand Prix in Texas: "We look at the next five races as opportunities to increase the lead on Verstappen. And when it involves having to make a decision as to a team driver, this will exclusively be led by mathematics."

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

What Prompted McLaren to Stop Development on This Year's Car?

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

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

The McLaren team started this year with the best car, after putting a lot of technical development into their 2025 season design.

They continued to improve it for a while, but were finding reduced benefits. So when evaluating the bang for buck they were achieving on their 2025 car compared to the 2026 car, it became an straightforward decision to redirect attention to next year.

Red Bull have caught up since bringing their new underfloor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team boss Stella said he believed Lando Norris had the pace to challenge for the win in Texas had he not finished behind Leclerc.

"We just have to continue optimising the car performance and keep executing strong race 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 deliver a flawless performance."

"So definitely we have a large opportunity, and the outcome of this season and the driver's title is in our hands. 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 entirely accurate basis. It's correct that both Lewis Hamilton and Sainz had somewhat sticky opening phases of the season, in different ways, and that they are now performing significantly improved.

Sainz and Alex Albon currently look quite balanced. However, it's not so clear that, in Hamilton's case, he is currently the "equal" of Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

Hamilton has failed to outperform Charles Leclerc frequently at all this year, either in qualifying sessions or Grand Prix.

He is now much closer than he was. He is consistently setting times within a small fraction of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Charles Leclerc since the summer break.

This previous weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second slower than his teammate when the Monaco driver made his tire change, and dropped thirteen seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the best race strategy. Nevertheless, over the season, and even currently, it's hard to claim that on average Charles Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari driver this year.

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

Lewis Hamilton would not claim even currently that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the regulation changes next year will benefit his driving style; he has never particularly liked these venturi cars.

There is a lot for a racing driver to understand and adapt to when they change constructors, as Lewis Hamilton has explained many times this season. But not every driver struggle in this way.

Alonso, for example, was performing well from the start of the 2023 when he moved to the Aston Martin team. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I suspect the majority in Formula 1 would expect not.

When Will We Know The Coming Season's Competitive Order?

Until the F1 cars are driven for the initial time in winter testing next year, nobody will understand how the constructors are looking in the upcoming season.

The first test, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is behind closed doors because the constructors wanted to get their heads around their initial track time of the power unit changes without the prying eyes of the media.

So the pair of sessions 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 only at the first race that the complete and precise situation will emerge.