McLaren-Mercedes team principal Martin Whitmarsh talks about 2011 Formula 1 season
Martin Whitmarsh became the leader of one of the most prestigious teams in the history of Formula 1, McLaren in 2009. He became the team principal and took over the team as the legendary Ron Dennis retired from the sport after giving the team seven constructors’
titles and bringing names like Mika Hakkinen, Lewis Hamilton and many others to the sport.
McLaren went through a terrible race weekend at Silverstone for the 2011 British Grand Prix which is the team’s home grand prix.
The team was unable to score a podium even as Hamilton finished in 4th place while Button had to retire out of the race due to a pit stop error.
After this recent performance, criticism against Whitmarsh started to surface as most of the critics now claim that the current team principal’s job might be under question as well.
Martin on the other hand cleared this matter and claimed that the team including Ron Dennis is happy with his work and that his job with the team is safe until he keeps trying his best alongside the team to give them their best possible results.
So far in the 2011 Formula 1 season, McLaren are the only team except Red Bull Racing to secure more than one victory but for a legendary team like McLaren, that is quite disappointing as they are being dominated by Red Bull. The team did not start its 2011
journey with the intentions of being thrashed by another team. Instead, they were hoping of winning the titles which currently is quite difficult.
“It’s not satisfying enough. I definitely would like to have it the other way around. (laughs) Of course we arrive at a race venue trying to win - and we have had some good wins - but that will never be enough for McLaren,” Whitmarsh said when asked whether
his team’s current results are satisfying.
He also added that for teams like McLaren and Ferrari, winning is the only goal and if they are not achieving it, then they are going through a very tough time at any point of the season.
As a result, this is an added pressure for these two teams and if this happens to Red Bull in the future, they would be concerned and questioned but still, not as much as McLaren and Ferrari.
Whitmarsh believes that only if his team gets a little more technical about everything, his team can win and beat any team on the grid.
“We are striving for excellence everywhere. Without getting too technical, I think that Red Bull has been exploiting this exhaust blowing and we’ve been a little bit new to that, so we are trying to catch up and we are trying to further develop the car,”
said Whitmarsh.
Other than that, he stated that Red Bull are not making any mistakes at all and that is the reason why they are the best team at the moment. He praised both Sebastian Vettel and Adrian Newey and added that this is just how Formula 1 is, one team dominates
a year and maybe the following year, they don’t even win a single race at all.
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