McLaren feels 'peacemaker' in FIA row

The Formula One Teams' Association has been at loggerheads with the FIA following the introduction of the budget cap rules for 2010, with several teams threatening to quit the sport if the regulations remain unchanged.

McLaren has maintained it does not want a two-tier championship, but has kept a much more low-key approach than some of its rivals.

Whitmarsh said his team felt his team felt a duty to try and smooth things out between the other squads and the FIA.

"We do feel responsible for being a peacemaker or to help try and bring that together," said Whitmarsh.

"Formula 1 is our core business and I'd hope if you talked to any team in F1 they would say that McLaren is being very constructive and conciliatory, sought for compromise and we've seen it as our role.

"We are right in the middle in terms of budgets, we've got large teams and large continental corporations that are wrestling with the concept of becoming smaller and we've got small teams that are trying to survive and I think we can have an affinity from our position with both of those.

"And you've got to try and bring together the Toyota business model with that of a Toro Rosso then that's quite a challenge but I hope we are in a position where we can understand that and I like to believe that we and Mercedes Benz can and have been very constructive in trying to bring those together. I think we very much try to do just that."

Whitmarsh also claimed his team has also been vocal about its ideas, just not in public.

"We have been vocal within the group, not vocal outside it," he added. "That's the right place to be vocal. I think our position is being very clearly and firmly put within the discussions that we have among ourselves but that's the right to be vocal."