McLaren: we made life easy for Ferrari

Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen were unstoppable as they delivered a result that closed down McLaren's advantage in both the drivers' and constructors' championships.

And after looking back on the event, McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh thinks that the team could have done a better job in making Ferrari work harder for their success.

"It was disappointing," he said after the race. "I think Ferrari were good here - they were strong. Overall I think we can say we were a little bit unfortunate to just miss out in qualifying.

"Perhaps our launch control wasn't good enough, but we were on the wrong side of the track and maybe we had the wrong tyres on as well. Those things played into it and Ferrari did a good solid job.

"It was pretty close between the two of us and in the end we didn't quite get them in qualifying. We made poor starts and then Fernando (Alonso) lost time behind BMW, and Lewis (Hamilton) got the puncture. We made it a bit too easy for them in the end."

Whitmarsh believes that without his puncture, Hamilton was poised to jump at least one of the Ferraris at his final stop - having been fuelled for a longer middle stint than his rivals.

"They were all pushing hard at that stage - and Lewis was running five laps longer. If he could have been within three seconds he could have got at least one of them at that final stop. With the puncture he had to come in early, lost that much time and had a damaged car too.

"But overall, we go away still leading both championships and have done a lot of work to bring performance to Monza. I'm sure Ferrari want to show well there too."