Martin Whitmarsh claims 2013 mistakes will not be repeated next year – Formula 1 News
Martin Whitmarsh has claimed that McLaren has learnt its lessons from the mistakes in the 2013 Formula 1 season and will be much more competitive next year.
When asked whether the McLaren team principal was aware of the problems he faced this year, he said, “Yes I am. Often you learn more from mistakes. So in terms of the motivation of the team, the focus of the team and the learning
it has been good. I can't remember us having the luxury of being able to choose, because a weakness of ours is we fight to win both championships and races.”
Despite losing Lewis Hamilton at the end of 2012, McLaren were considered as one of the main contenders for the championship this year. However, things did not work out well for them and they are struggling to finish in points
with consistency.
Talking about that, Whitmarsh added, “We are disappointed in this year's car and we rightly should be because ultimately it is relevant performance [compared to rival teams] that counts. We are about six months behind the others
in terms of developments, and I think that was a fairly well documented mistake we made as a team.”
After the first few races of the current season, it was pretty much clear that the Woking based outfit would be unable to match their rivals unless they made some dramatic recovery from the position they were in.
Although Whitmarsh and his men tried their best to improve the performance of their car, yet they failed to achieve positive results, as rivals kept on getting away from them with the passage of time.
As a result, both Jenson Button and Sergio Perez have been unable to finish in the top-10 with consistency. They have been trying their best, but not managed to score a single podium finish until now.
However, the German GP gave some hope to McLaren, as their drivers managed to push hard throughout the race day. The teams were given previous year’s tyres following safety concerns, which suited the MP4-28 relatively more to other
midfield teams like Force India, who have been the best of all amongst the bottom five squads.
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