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

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

The McLaren team are well aware of the challenge they encounter with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the drivers' championship this year, but they don't believe to change their strategy to managing the team.

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

"This is the way we intend competing. This remains the way in which we tackle competition, and we want to remain fair, and we want to maintain equality to both drivers."

Team boss Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of many championship fights. He claimed the championship as engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver recovered 17 points under the old scoring system in two Grands Prix to secure the championship, while the McLaren team collapsed.

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

Stella commented following the Grand Prix in Texas: "We view the next five races as opportunities to increase the gap on Max. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a team driver, this will exclusively be determined by mathematics."

"We lean on the experience. I can remember at least the 2007 season, 2010, in which you go to the last race and it's actually the [driver in] third [place] that wins the championship. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is closed by mathematics."

Why Did McLaren Stop Development on The Current Car?

Every team this season have had to face the conundrum of how long to focus on their 2025 season car while also making sure they are as ready as they can be for the major rules overhaul coming for 2026.

In Formula 1, it's usually the situation that if a team makes mistakes 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 the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the last time the rules were modified.

The McLaren team began this season with the fastest car, after investing a lot of technical development into their 2025 season design.

They did continue to improve it for a period, but were finding diminishing returns. So when evaluating the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 car compared to 2026, it became an straightforward choice to redirect attention to next year.

The Red Bull team have closed the gap since bringing their updated floor and front wing at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren remains competitive - team principal Stella said he believed Norris had the speed to challenge for the victory in Austin had he not finished following Leclerc.

"We must keep optimising the car performance and continue delivering strong race weekends. And from this point of view, if you consider a race like Baku City Circuit, we failed to optimize the car's potential and we didn't execute a flawless race."

"So definitely we have a significant chance, and the outcome of this championship and the drivers' championship is in our hands. It's not in someone else's hands."

Driver Transfers: How Challenging Is It to Switch Teams?

First of all, it's uncertain the inquiry has an completely correct premise. It's true that both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly difficult opening phases of the championship, in varying manners, and that they are now performing significantly improved.

Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon do now appear very even. However, it's less certain that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is yet the "equal" of Leclerc - or not consistently, at least.

Hamilton has failed to outperform Charles Leclerc frequently at all this season, either in qualifying or race.

He is now significantly nearer than he previously. He is consistently qualifying within a few hundredths of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying it's four-two to Charles Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This last weekend in Austin, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred 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, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Regardless, over the championship, and even currently, it's hard to claim that on balance Charles Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari driver this year.

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 Ferrari - and he is expecting the regulation changes next season will suit him; he has never particularly liked these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a lot for a racing driver to get their head around when they switch teams, as Hamilton has described many times this year. But not every driver struggle in this way.

Alonso, for example, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 when he transferred to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he changed constructors? I believe 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 year, no-one will know how the constructors are performing next year.

The initial session, in Barcelona on 26-30 January, is behind closed doors because the teams preferred to understand their initial track time of the new engines without the prying eyes of the media.

So the two tests in Bahrain on 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the initial occasion a certain sense of relative performance becomes apparent.

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