Will the McLaren team Keep Maintaining Fair Play and Halt Max Verstappen? - Formula 1 Questions and Answers

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

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

They will continue to give both drivers the best chance they can and operate the team on a foundation of fairness and equanimity.

"This represents 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 equal treatment to our drivers."

Team boss Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of numerous title battles. He won the championship as engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari racer recovered seventeen points under the previous points system in two races to secure the championship, while the McLaren team imploded.

And he missed out on the championship as engineer to Fernando Alonso in 2010, when Ferrari made errors in their strategy at the final race of the season and enabled Vettel and Red Bull to sneak the championship from under their noses.

Andrea Stella stated following the Grand Prix in Texas: "We view the next five races as chances to extend the lead on Max. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a team driver, this will exclusively be led by the numbers."

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

What Prompted McLaren to Cease Upgrades on This Year's Car?

Every team this year have had to confront the conundrum of how long to concentrate on their 2025 car while also making sure they are as prepared as they can be for the major regulation change scheduled for the 2026 season.

In Formula 1, it's usually the case that if a team gets it wrong at the start of a new regulation period, it can take a long time to catch up. And if they succeed, that advantage can last for a while - look at Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules were modified.

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

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

Red Bull have closed the gap since introducing their updated underfloor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team boss Stella stated he believed Norris had the speed to challenge for the win in Texas had he not finished behind Leclerc.

"We must continue optimising the car performance and continue delivering strong race weekends. And from this point of view, if you think of a Grand Prix like Baku, we didn't maximise the performance and we didn't execute a perfect performance."

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

Team Changes: How Challenging Is It to Change Constructors?

Initially, I'm not sure the inquiry has an entirely correct basis. It's true that each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly difficult first halves of the championship, in varying manners, and that they are currently performing much better.

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

Lewis Hamilton has not beaten Charles Leclerc frequently 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 Charles Leclerc since the summer break.

This previous weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's preferred circuits, he was a full second slower than Leclerc when the Monegasque completed his tire change, and lost thirteen seconds over the rest of the race.

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

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

Hamilton would not say even currently that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the new rules next year will suit him; he has never particularly liked these venturi cars.

There is a great deal for a driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Lewis Hamilton has explained many times this year. But not every driver faces difficulties in this manner.

Alonso, for example, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 when he moved to Aston Martin. And would Verstappen face challenges if he switched teams? I believe the majority in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

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

Until the F1 cars run for the first time in winter testing next season, no-one will understand how the constructors are looking next year.

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

So the pair of sessions in Sakhir on February 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the initial occasion a certain sense of relative performance emerges.

But, as always, it's only at the season opener that the complete and precise situation will emerge.