Can the McLaren team Keep Maintaining Fair Play and Stop Verstappen? - F1 Questions and Answers

Must McLaren Face the Truth of F1 - That if You Want Win, You Can't Always Play Fair?

The McLaren team are well aware of the difficulty they face with Max Verstappen and Red Bull in the championship battle this year, but they don't believe to alter their approach to managing the team.

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

"This is the way we plan competing. This is the method in which we tackle racing, and we aim to remain fair, and we intend to maintain equal treatment to both drivers."

Team principal Stella is a seasoned expert of numerous championship fights. He won the championship as race engineer to Raikkonen in 2007 when the Ferrari racer recovered seventeen points under the previous points system in two Grands Prix to win the championship, while McLaren imploded.

And he missed out on the title as engineer to Alonso in 2010, when the Ferrari team messed up their strategy at the last Grand Prix of the championship and enabled Vettel and the Red Bull team to sneak the championship from their grasp.

Stella commented after the Grand Prix in Austin: "We view the remaining five Grands Prix as chances to increase the gap on Max. And when it involves having to make a call as to a team driver, this will exclusively be led by mathematics."

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

What Prompted McLaren to Stop Upgrades on The Current Car?

Every team this season have had to face the dilemma of for how long to concentrate on their 2025 season car while also making sure they are as ready as they can be for the significant regulation change scheduled for 2026.

In F1, it's usually the case that if a constructor makes mistakes at the start of a new rules cycle, it can take a considerable period to catch up. And if they get it right, that advantage can continue for some time - look at the Red Bull team in 2022 and 2023, the most recent occasion the regulations changed.

The McLaren team started this year with the fastest 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 looking at the value for money they were getting on their 2025 season car compared to 2026, it became an straightforward decision to redirect attention to the following season.

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

"We must continue optimising the car performance and keep delivering strong weekends. And from this perspective, if you think of a race like Baku, we failed to optimize the car's potential and we didn't deliver a perfect race."

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

Team Changes: How Challenging Is It to Change Constructors?

First of all, it's uncertain the question has an entirely correct basis. It's correct that each of Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had slightly sticky first halves of the championship, in different ways, and that they are currently faring significantly improved.

Sainz and Alex Albon currently look quite balanced. However, it's less certain that, in Hamilton's case, he is currently the "equal" of Charles Leclerc - or not consistently, at least.

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

He is currently 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 four-two to Charles Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This previous weekend in Texas, on one of Lewis Hamilton's favourite tracks, he was a second slower than his teammate when the Monegasque completed his tire change, and dropped 13 seconds over the remaining portion of the race.

Looking back, Charles Leclerc was on the best strategy. Regardless, over the season, and even currently, it's difficult to claim that on average Leclerc has not been the superior Ferrari racer this year.

Both Hamilton and Carlos Sainz have talked about how difficult it is to change constructors, and we have to take them at their word.

Hamilton would not say even now that he was fully adapted to Ferrari - and he is hoping the regulation changes next season will benefit his driving style; he has never really enjoyed these ground-effect vehicles.

There is a lot for a driver to get their head around when they switch teams, as Lewis Hamilton has described repeatedly this year. But not every driver faces difficulties in this way.

Alonso, for instance, was performing well from the beginning of the 2023 season when he transferred to Aston Martin. And would Verstappen face challenges if he switched teams? I believe most in Formula 1 would anticipate he wouldn't.

When Will We Know Next Year's Competitive Order?

Until the F1 cars run for the initial time in pre-season testing next year, nobody will understand how the constructors are looking next year.

The initial session, in Catalunya on 26-30 January, is private because the teams preferred to get their heads around their first running of the power unit changes without the scrutiny of the media.

So the pair of sessions in Bahrain on February 11-13 and February 18-20 will be the initial occasion a certain indication of comparative speed becomes apparent.

But, as ever, it's not until the season opener that the complete and precise picture will emerge.