McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh explains about qualifying howler – Formula 1 news
McLaren team principal, Martin Whitmarsh has said that he intended Lewis Hamilton to be on track during the qualifying of 2012 Spanish Grand Prix held at Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, even though he suspected that the car might run short of fuel.
The 2008 world champion delivered an amazing performance in the qualifying and topped the timesheets with his best time of 1 minute and 21.707 seconds.
However, he was disqualified from his pole position in the race as he failed to meet the minimum fuel requirement in his car before returning to the pit.
Nevertheless, he secured an incredible 8th place finish even after setting off from the last grid position and expressed that he is proud of his performance in the Spanish GP and admired the efforts which his team has made in the season so far.
Whitmarsh said that he wanted Hamilton to be on pole, therefore, he made the call to keep him on the track. He also said that he was not sure that the fuel would get short in the end. Nonetheless, he admitted that they made a mistake.
“You then have to take a view and I took the view that I wanted to give Lewis the opportunity to be on pole. I believed he could be on pole and I think that was good for him. We then continued to assess it and took the decision that we knew we had to provide
one litre of fuel, that's a definitive regulation and we knew we would be sampled, so we decided that we'd make sure we complied and we got 1.3 litres out of the car and we took that decision,” he said.
Furthermore, he said that he was immensely impressed by the way Hamilton has responded towards their mistake. He also said that he felt surprised by the verdict of the stewards however they accepted the decision.
The Woking based team are presently standing at second position in the constructors’ championship with 98 points. Moreover, they are 11 points behind the defending champions, Red Bull Racing and 14 points ahead of Lotus.
Over and above, they are looking forward to improve their pace in the upcoming races so as to make their position stronger in 2012 F1 World Championship.
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