Will the McLaren team Keep Maintaining Fair Play and Halt Max Verstappen? - F1 Questions and Answers

Must McLaren Face the Truth of F1 - That if You Want Win, It's Not Always Possible to Be Fair?

The McLaren team are fully conscious of the challenge they encounter with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this year, but they see no reason to alter their strategy to running the team.

They will persist to provide their two drivers the optimal opportunity they can and operate the team on a foundation of fairness and equanimity.

"This is the approach we plan competing. This is the philosophy in which we approach racing, and we aim to remain fair, and we want to maintain equality to both drivers."

Team boss Stella is a veteran of many championship fights. He won the championship as race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver recovered 17 points under the old scoring system in two races to win the championship, while the McLaren team imploded.

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

Andrea Stella stated following the race in Texas: "We view the remaining five Grands Prix as chances to increase the gap on Max. And when it comes to having to make a call as to a team driver, this will only be determined by the numbers."

"We lean on the past experience. I can recall at least the 2007 season, the 2010 season, in which you reach 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 determined 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 prepared as they can be for the major regulation change scheduled for 2026.

In F1, it's typically the case that if a constructor gets it wrong at the beginning of a new rules cycle, it can take a long time to catch up. And if they succeed, that benefit can last for a while - consider the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the rules were modified.

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

They continued to improve it for a period, but were experiencing reduced benefits. So when looking at the bang for buck they were getting on their 2025 car compared to 2026, it became an straightforward choice to switch focus to next year.

Red Bull have closed the gap since bringing their updated underfloor and front wing at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team principal Andrea Stella said he thought Lando Norris had the speed to challenge for the victory in Austin had he not ended up behind Charles Leclerc.

"We just have to keep maximising the performance and continue executing strong race weekends. And from this point of view, if you consider a Grand Prix like Baku City Circuit, we failed to optimize the performance and we didn't deliver a perfect race."

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

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

Initially, I'm not sure the question has an completely accurate premise. It's true that each of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky first halves of the championship, in different ways, and that they are currently performing significantly improved.

Sainz and Albon do now look quite balanced. However, it's less certain that, in Hamilton's case, he is currently the "match" of Charles Leclerc - or not regularly, anyway.

Hamilton has not beaten Charles Leclerc frequently at all this year, either in qualifying or race.

He is now much closer than he was. He is consistently setting times within a few hundredths of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Charles Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This last weekend in Austin, on one of Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a full second slower than his teammate when the Monaco driver completed his tire change, and lost 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the best strategy. Regardless, over the season, and even currently, it's difficult to argue that on average Charles Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari racer this year.

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

Hamilton would not say even currently that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is expecting the new rules next season will benefit his driving style; he has never really enjoyed these venturi cars.

There is a lot for a driver to understand and adapt to when they switch teams, as Lewis Hamilton has explained repeatedly this season. But not every driver struggle in this manner.

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

When Will We Know Next Year's Team Performance?

Before the cars run for the first time in winter testing next year, nobody will understand how the constructors are performing in the upcoming season.

The initial session, in Barcelona on January 26-30, is behind closed doors because the constructors wanted to get their heads around their initial track time of the new engines without the prying eyes of the press.

So the two tests in Sakhir 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 not until the first race that the complete and precise situation will emerge.