McLaren refuses to switch focus to 2014 F1 car despite poor start
McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh will continue to resist calls from his outfit to switch efforts to its 2014 car, even though this year's title hopes are slipping away
The Woking-based team's poor start to the campaign has already left Jenson Button and Sergio Perez facing an uphill task to keep themselves in the hunt for the championship.
But Whitmarsh is reluctant to abandon the 2013 campaign yet, as McLaren waits to see how much performance it gains from a big upgrade package for the Spanish Grand Prix.
When asked if there was not a temptation to get a head start on 2014 car development, Whitmarsh said: "There might be in the organisation, but that is one of my flaws: I don't want to go racing if we are not competitive.
"Maybe it is a character flaw, but I have made it reasonably clear from Australia that I am not even talking about 2014 at the moment.
"One of my weaknesses is I want to be competitive. I want to get back to the front and I want to come to grands prix thinking we can win.
"We haven't thought that for the last four races and we want to get it back."
Whitmarsh added that McLaren's first focus was to start racing at the front, before thinking about making up ground in the title race.
"The truth is, what I want to see is getting on the podium and getting on the top steps," he said, when asked by AUTOSPORT about his feelings on the championship.
"I am thinking more of that, and that is what we have to do - one step at a time.
"Going racing when you don't think you can win is not something I enjoy particularly, so I want to get back to the point where you are coming in on Thursday with the anticipation that we can win.
"That is how I want us to be and that is how people expect us to be."
Share Or Save This Story
Brundle awarded OBE in King’s New Year’s honours
The new rules dilemma that will define the 2025 F1 season
Jon Noble: An unfair perception or a genuine concern? Lifting the lid on Red Bull’s Tsunoda scepticism
Why Leclerc wasn’t penalised for clash with Piastri in Belgian GP
Why F1 drivers are being beaten by their own power units
Why becoming a world champion for the first time has its own pressures
The new strengths Antonelli has shown in F1, 12 months on from 'reaching the bottom'
How Estonia crowned Pajari as the WRC’s new flying Finn
What we can learn from Mercedes' floor after Russell's Belgian GP retirement
The important lesson Solberg put into practice in Estonia
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments