McLaren vow to work with Renault

With Michelin having lost its advantage over rival Bridgestone, McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh believes it is vital that his team and Renault unite in a bid to change the situation.

But he believes it may be too much to expect the current formbook to change much by this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.

"It's an exciting championship now," admitted Whitmarsh, referring to Ferrari's closing down on Renault in the title chase. "Renault are a strong team and Alonso is a great world champion, but at the moment there has been an upswing by Ferrari.

"Michelin, Renault and McLaren will be working hard together though, because there is a common interest. We all want to beat Ferrari for the rest of the season.

"But the requirements of the Hungaroring are quite different to Hockenheim, so you have to say the trend of the last three races is worrisome."

Whitmarsh believes that Renault's difficulties in Germany, where bad blistering of their rear tyres caused their worst result of the season, was almost certainly caused by the banning of their mass damper system.

"In the last few races we've moved to a new front construction," said Whitmarsh. "Renault have joined us on that construction now this weekend.

"Suspension systems are doing two things, they are dealing with the surface of the road, the highest average contact patch load and controlling the aerodynamic attitude of the vehicle.

"If you look at all F1 cars now, not one has a simple linear suspension system, with four dampers and four springs. Some people rely on mass dampers more than others.

"If you talk to engineers on average they will be people taking various views. On average they are worth up to 0.2 of seconds per lap - 0.3 is the maximum."