McLaren convinced victories will come

Alonso took his fourth straight victory in Canada last weekend, after Kimi Raikkonen's challenge was wrecked by a slipping clutch that cost him time during the pitstops.

But with Raikkonen having shown enough speed to challenge Alonso in the early stages, and being on a strategy that should have given him a chance to win, his McLaren team are bullish that they are getting close to their first victory of 2006.

"It is close," said Whitmarsh. "At least we have made a little bit of headway and that is reassuring. Fernando in the Renault is still very strong and it is not easy to beat him.

"He is not making a lot of mistakes and quite a lot of drivers make a few mistakes out there in Canada - even Fernando at one stage had a mistake as well - so we have just got to push hard.

"In my opinion we are going to win some races. It has just been a long time coming."

Whitmarsh echoed post-race comments from Raikkonen suggesting that his late race error at the hairpin, which allowed Michael Schumacher to snatch second place, was of no major concern because their main focus is just on winning.

"I would rather lose a second place than first place," he explained. "Gifting it to Michael is painful to us, but I think we are here to win.

"The incidents earlier on in the race prevented us from being in with an opportunity to win the race and that is what we have got to focus on - not what happened at the end."