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

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

The McLaren team are well aware of the difficulty they encounter with Max Verstappen and Red Bull in the drivers' championship this year, but they see no reason to alter their strategy to managing the team.

They will persist to give their two drivers the optimal opportunity they can and operate the team on a basis of equity and equanimity.

"This is the manner we intend competing. This is the method in which we tackle competition, and we aim to remain fair, and we want to apply equal treatment to both drivers."

Team boss Andrea Stella is a seasoned expert of many championship fights. He claimed the title as race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari driver made up seventeen points under the previous points system in two Grands Prix to win the championship, while the McLaren team imploded.

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

Stella said after the Grand Prix in Texas: "We view the remaining five Grands Prix as chances to extend the lead on Verstappen. And when it involves having to make a decision as to a driver, this will only be determined by mathematics."

"We lean on the experience. I can recall at least 2007, 2010, 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 determined by mathematics."

Why Did McLaren Cease Development on This Year's Car?

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

In F1, it's usually the situation that if a constructor gets it wrong at the beginning of a new regulation period, it can take a long time to catch up. And if they get it right, that advantage can continue for some time - look at Red Bull in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations were modified.

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

They did continue to develop it for a while, but were finding diminishing returns. So when evaluating the value for money they were achieving on their 2025 car versus the 2026 car, it became an easy decision to switch focus to the following season.

Red Bull have caught up since introducing their updated underfloor and nose section at the Italian Grand Prix, but the McLaren car stays competitive - team principal Stella stated he thought Lando Norris had the pace to compete for the win in Texas had he not finished behind Charles Leclerc.

"We must continue maximising the performance and continue 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."

"Therefore we have a significant opportunity, and the result of this season and the drivers' championship is in our hands. It's not in another team's control."

Driver Transfers: How Challenging Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, it's uncertain the question has an entirely correct premise. It's true that each of Hamilton and Sainz had somewhat difficult opening phases of the season, in varying manners, and that they are now performing significantly improved.

Carlos Sainz and Albon do now appear very even. However, it's not so clear that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is yet the "equal" of Charles Leclerc - or not consistently, anyway.

Lewis Hamilton has not beaten Charles Leclerc very often at all this season, either in qualifying or Grand Prix.

He is now much closer than he previously. He is regularly qualifying within a few hundredths of a second of his teammate, but in qualifying it's 4-2 to Charles Leclerc since the summer break.

This last weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's preferred circuits, he was a second behind Leclerc when the Monaco driver completed his tire change, and dropped thirteen seconds over the remaining portion of the race.

In hindsight, Leclerc was on the optimal race strategy. Nevertheless, over the season, and even currently, it's difficult to argue that on average Leclerc has hasn't been the better Ferrari racer this year.

Both Hamilton and Sainz have discussed how challenging it is to change constructors, 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 hoping the new rules next season will suit him; he has never particularly liked these venturi cars.

There is a great deal for a driver to get their head around when they switch teams, as Lewis Hamilton has described many times this season. But not every driver faces difficulties in this manner.

Alonso, for example, was on it from the beginning of the 2023 when he transferred to Aston Martin. And would Verstappen face challenges if he changed constructors? I suspect most in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know Next Year's Team Performance?

Before the cars are driven for the first time in pre-season testing next season, nobody will know how the constructors are performing next year.

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

So the pair of sessions in Sakhir on 11-13 and 18-20 February will be the first time some kind of sense of relative performance becomes apparent.

But, as ever, it's not until the first race that the complete and precise picture will become clear.