McLaren Hoping for Renault Mishap

The Woking-based team have been widely acknowledged to have had the quickest car all season, but a mixture of driver errors, team mistakes and engine blow-ups have allowed Renault to steal the initiative in the title chase.

And with Raikkonen having suffered a second consecutive 10-place grid penalty for an engine change at last weekend's British Grand Prix, which left him again unable to close the points margin on Alonso, McLaren are well aware how much their poor reliability is hurting.

"If we can be reliable with our two drivers, with the package we have got, then we can beat Renault at the moment," said McLaren's F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh. "We should have won the last eight races, but we didn't, and we have to make sure that we make it stick in the remaining races.

"If Renault make a slip-up or two then we are in there to win both Championships. The constructors' is probably an easier one than the drivers' and we are not making predictions.

"All we are saying is that we can win it and we are there to win it, but to do that we have got to win a lot of races. We are going to go to Germany with the goal of getting first and second there, and maximizing our points, and we hope the others steal points from Renault in the process."

When asked whether his comments meant the team effectively needed Renault to make mistakes if they were going to have a realistic chance of the title, Whitmarsh said: "Yeah we do. But there is not much sign of that at the moment unfortunately. We would like to see a few other teams up there fighting."