Will McLaren Continue Playing Fair and Stop Verstappen? - F1 Q&A

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

McLaren are fully conscious of the difficulty they confront with Max Verstappen and Red Bull in the championship battle this season, but they don't believe to change their approach to running the team.

They will continue to give both drivers the best chance they can and run the team on a foundation of fairness and balance.

"This represents the way we plan competing. This remains the philosophy in which we tackle racing, and we want to remain equitable, and we intend to apply equal treatment to both drivers."

Team boss Andrea Stella is a veteran of many title battles. He won the championship as engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in the 2007 season when the Ferrari driver recovered 17 points under the previous points system in two Grands Prix to secure the championship, while the McLaren team imploded.

And he lost the title as engineer to Alonso in the 2010 season, when Ferrari messed up their race strategy at the last Grand Prix of the season and allowed Vettel and Red Bull to snatch the title from their grasp.

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

"We lean on the experience. I can remember at least 2007, 2010, in which you reach the final Grand Prix and it's in fact the third-placed driver that claims the title. So we're not going to close the door unless this is determined by the calculations."

What Prompted McLaren to Stop Development on The Current Car?

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

In F1, it's usually the situation that if a team makes mistakes at the start of a new regulation period, it can take a considerable period to recover. 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 changed.

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

They did continue to improve it for a period, but were experiencing reduced benefits. So when evaluating the value for money they were getting on their 2025 car versus 2026, it became an easy choice to redirect attention to the following season.

Red Bull have caught up since bringing their updated floor and nose section at the Monza Grand Prix, but the McLaren stays competitive - team principal Stella said he believed Norris had the pace to challenge for the victory in Texas had he not finished following Leclerc.

"We just have to continue maximising the performance and keep executing strong weekends. And from this perspective, if you think of a race like Baku, we didn't maximise the car's potential and we didn't deliver a perfect performance."

"So definitely we have a significant opportunity, and the outcome 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 Switch Teams?

Initially, it's uncertain the question has an entirely correct premise. It's correct that both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz had somewhat sticky opening phases of the championship, in varying manners, and that they are currently performing significantly improved.

Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon currently appear very even. However, it's not so clear that, in Lewis Hamilton's case, he is yet the "match" of Charles Leclerc - or not consistently, at least.

Hamilton has not beaten 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 Leclerc, but in qualifying it's four-two to Charles Leclerc since the mid-season break.

This last weekend in Texas, on one of Hamilton's preferred tracks, he was a second behind his teammate when the Monaco driver completed his pit stop, and lost thirteen seconds over the rest of the Grand Prix.

In hindsight, Leclerc was on the best race strategy. Nevertheless, over the championship, and even now, it's difficult to argue that on average Charles Leclerc has hasn't been the superior Ferrari driver this season.

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

Hamilton would not claim even now that he was fully adapted to the Ferrari car - and he is hoping the regulation changes next year will suit him; he has never really enjoyed these ground-effect vehicles.

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

Fernando Alonso, for example, 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 suspect the majority in F1 would expect not.

When Will We Know The Coming Season's Team Performance?

Until the F1 cars are driven for the initial time in pre-season testing next season, no-one will understand how the constructors are looking next year.

The first test, in Catalunya on January 26-30, is behind closed doors because the teams wanted to understand their first running of the power unit changes without the scrutiny of the media.

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 always, it's not until the season opener that the true and accurate situation will become clear.