Whitmarsh future in shareholders' hands

In the wake of the fallout from Lewis Hamilton's disqualification from the Australian Grand Prix for deliberately misleading stewards, Whitmarsh has refused to rule out stepping down from the post he took from Ron Dennis on March 1.

But speaking ahead of the Malaysian Grand Prix, Whitmarsh believed the matter would now be dealt with by McLaren's shareholders.

When asked if he was considering his future, Whitmarsh said: "Well it wouldn't be true if I said I wasn't, because at a time like this you think about what you got involved with this sport for and it wasn't for this sort of thing.

"You also think about what is best for the company and this great team. And it hasn't been a great experience for me. It wasn't what I started out 20 years ago to experience."

He added: "In the longer term I can contemplate my own future. Of course it is not self-determining, it's for the shareholders of this team to take a view and that's something they have to decide what's the best thing."

Whitmarsh said the team would return to its Woking base to decide on the next step following a remarkable week.

"I'm not resigning this weekend," he said. "We've made a commitment to look at how we arrived in this situation and we've got to learn from it and we've got to better in future.

"We will do a better job, I think therefore it is wrong to rule anything out, I've got to look at what is the best way forward for this team and how can we better in the future."