McLaren vow to keep on pushing

Although Ferrari scored their second consecutive one-two finish in Barcelona, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton finished just four seconds behind, with BMW's Robert Kubica 1.5 seconds further adrift.

The Renault team, meanwhile, seemed to take a significant step forward and Fernando Alonso was battling on top until he retired with a broken engine.

Whitmarsh reckons that with such a competitive field, there is not time to relax.

"The three quickest teams - ourselves, Ferrari and BMW-Sauber - looked to be very closely matched; and Renault has taken a major step forwards, too," said Whitmarsh.

"It looks good for the sport, but we have to build on our own solid performance. We know we have some more developments coming through and we have to make sure we get them as soon as we can.

"There will be some more new parts on the car in Turkey and we simply have to keep pushing."

Whitmarsh also praised Hamilton, who was back on form after his disappointing performance in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

"Lewis drove a great race. He took a very measured approach at the beginning, because we reasoned that Fernando Alonso, who was running just ahead of him, was possibly a little bit lighter on fuel," he added.

"It would have been very easy for Lewis to chase down Fernando at that stage and damage his tyres, which might have prevented him from taking advantage of Fernando's earlier stop.

"In fact, Lewis did just the right job in holding back and doing minimal damage to his tyres, so as to be able to press on later, and that clearly put him in good shape.

"During the second and third stints he was as quick as the Ferraris and able to catch up, but trying to pass a rival car at the Circuit de Catalunya is another matter altogether."