Martin Whitmarsh: “We’re starting from the right place”

After Jenson Button’s win in Australia McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh says that the team is well placed for a title challenge, given its recent history of developing its car over the course of the season.

The difference is that this time McLaren has started off with the best package on the grid as a useful base from which to improve.

“We’re starting from the right place,” said Whitmarsh. “We know that we’ve got to improve the car on a race by race basis, that’s the nature of this sport. We’ve got some formidable competitors, Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and Lotus look strong as well.

“It’s pretty tight. It’s as it should be, it’s F1, it should be difficult to win, and it is. I think we’re looking forward to next weekend, we do fancy our chances there, but who knows?

“This feels pretty good. We’ve got two fantastic drivers, a strong team, and now it’s up to us. We can win this if we improve the car at a quick enough rate. So that’s what we’re going to set out to do.

“Assuming the trend in Barcelona remains we ought to feel comfortable that we can go to the next high speed track in Sepang and be very competitive. That’s the aim anyway, we’ll see how it goes.”

Whitmarsh was full of praise for Button, who did a near faultless job all weekend.

“I think he’s just got stronger and stronger. He’s got such a mature, laid back easy manner it just belies the underlying hunger to win that he has. I think he must now believe that he’s in with a good chance of a proper title run this year, and I think providing that we can continue to improve the car, and not make mistakes and be reliable, there’s no reason that he can’t.”

He also had an interesting take on Lewis Hamilton, who made his displeasure at the result all too clear in post-race activities: “Lewis wasn’t happy today, but when Lewis starts getting happy with being third or being beaten by his team mate, he won’t be the Lewis that we all love and admire…”