McLaren vow to raise game in Bahrain

Following their victory in Australia, McLaren found themselves unable to take the fight to Ferrari at Sepang as Kimi Raikkonen took a dominant win.

And it is the swift turnaround in form that has left Whitmarsh in no doubt that his team need to regroup quickly - as well as make improvements to their car.

"You're always worried when you get beaten, and Ferrari looked strong," said Whitmarsh about the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend.

"I don't think we performed as well as we could have done throughout the weekend. I'm worried about that and need to make sure we make the car quicker."

Whitmarsh believes that the way the form of Ferrari and McLaren has swung in the first two races points to another close season - which means his team cannot afford to make errors.

"The reality is we didn't perform as strongly as we could have done. Obviously, a number of circumstances prevailed otherwise we could have had a second and third. But as it turned out we under-performed and we know we've got to do a better job at the next race.

"If you look at what happened last year, it swung backwards and forwards in terms of competitiveness and I think that's good for the sport if we do a decent job then hopefully we can be competitive, if we don't perform so well then Ferrari can beat us.

"We're going to go to Bahrain and try and battle for a win again. We leave this weekend, it was less than great for us but we're still leading both world championships so it's not a shabby start to the year.

"It's something to build on and we need to make sure we raise our game at Bahrain and through into the European season."

The competitiveness of Ferrari and McLaren also means that the key to the championship will be in how quickly each team can develop and improve their cars.

Whitmarsh added: "As the season progresses, it seems rather like last year. It's an exciting season where wherever you are in the first race, you've got to develop the car race by race to be competitive, raise your game and do a good job setting the car up.

"I don't think we did the best job we could last weekend, so we'll be looking at that and seeing where we made mistakes - which clearly we have done."