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Must McLaren Accept Reality of F1 - That if You Want Win, It's Not Always Possible to Play Fair?

The McLaren team are fully conscious of the difficulty they encounter with Verstappen and the Red Bull team in the championship battle this season, but they see no reason to change their strategy to managing the team.

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

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

Team principal Stella is a veteran of numerous title battles. He won the championship as engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver recovered 17 points under the previous points system in two races to win the championship, while McLaren imploded.

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

Stella said after the Grand Prix in Texas: "We look at 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 the numbers."

"We lean on the past experience. I can remember at least the 2007 season, the 2010 season, in which you reach the final Grand Prix and it's actually the third-placed driver that wins the championship. So we're not going to make decisions unless this is closed by the calculations."

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

All teams this year have had to face the dilemma 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 rules overhaul scheduled for 2026.

In Formula 1, it's typically the situation that if a constructor makes mistakes at the beginning of a new regulation period, it can take a long time to recover. And if they get it right, that advantage can continue for some time - consider the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations changed.

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

They continued to develop it for a period, but were finding reduced benefits. So when looking at the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 car versus the 2026 car, it became an straightforward decision to redirect attention to the following season.

The Red Bull team have caught up since bringing their new underfloor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car remains competitive - team boss Stella stated he thought Norris had the pace to compete for the win in Texas had he not ended up following Charles Leclerc.

"We just have to continue maximising the performance and continue delivering strong weekends. And from this point of view, if you consider a race like Baku, we didn't maximise the performance and we didn't deliver a flawless race."

"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."

Team Changes: How Difficult Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, I'm not sure the question has an entirely accurate basis. It's correct that each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly difficult opening phases of the season, in different ways, and that they are now performing significantly improved.

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

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

He is now significantly nearer than he was. He is consistently qualifying within a few hundredths of a second of Leclerc, but in qualifying battles it's 4-2 to Charles Leclerc since the summer break.

This last weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite tracks, he was a second slower than his teammate when the Monaco driver completed his pit stop, and lost 13 seconds over the rest of the race.

In hindsight, Charles Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Nevertheless, over the season, and even now, it's hard to argue that on balance Charles Leclerc has not been the better Ferrari racer this season.

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

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

There is a great deal for a driver to get their head around when they change constructors, as Hamilton has explained many times this season. But not all struggle in this manner.

Fernando Alonso, for instance, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 when he moved to Aston Martin. And would Max Verstappen struggle if he switched teams? I suspect most in F1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

How Soon Can We Determine The Coming Season's Competitive Order?

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

The first test, in Barcelona on 26-30 January, is behind closed doors because the teams preferred 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 Bahrain on February 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the first time some kind of indication of relative performance emerges.

But, as ever, it's only at the first race that the complete and precise situation will emerge.