Q & A with Martin Whitmarsh

NASCAR-bound Juan Pablo Montoya is now out of the picture, while Kimi Raikkonen appears likely to find pastures new - either at Enstone or Maranello. That effectively reduces the choice to Pedro de la Rosa, Gary Paffett or Lewis Hamilton.

De la Rosa did his chances no harm with a strong start to his latest spell with the team in France, although it is possible Paffett may get a chance to show his hand later this year.

Autosport.com heard from Martin Whitmarsh about the latest driver goings on at the team, including the background to Montoya being replaced, de la Rosa's future and whether Paffett and Hamilton are ready for F1.

Q. Can you clarify the Juan Pablo Montoya situation, and how likely you believe he will come back and race this year?

Martin Whitmarsh: The fact is that we have a contract with Juan Pablo and he is currently on the subs bench. He knows that and he is obliged to come back and race if we request or require him to do. Inevitably in this business if you have got a driver who has expressly stated that he does not want to be back in the car, then I would suggest it is pretty unlikely he will be back in the car.

In fairness, I have not heard that from Juan Pablo. Whether he is being misquoted or his quotes have been taken out of context, I don't know. The fact is, he is still under contract to McLaren and we will see in the coming months. I don't think it is likely that we will be calling him up in the very near future to say that we would like him to be back in the car. But we are still able to do so because we have a contract. If we don't have a contract then clearly we should not be continuing to pay him, should we?

Q. Under what circumstances could you envisage a return?

MW: If we got to a situation where we could convince ourselves that we could maximise the opportunity to score points on a Grand Prix weekend with Juan Pablo in the car, then we will do so. Because that is what we are about. If we thought that the conditions, the environment and Juan's motivation and focus were such that he was going to come back and score more points than the alternative, then we would do that. If we had thought that in France, we would have done it, wouldn't we?

Q. It will be a sporting decision rather than a commercial one then?

MW: Yes, absolutely. The reality is that we are here to do the best job we can. We have got an obligation to the team and it really is what we come to every race for. Within our ability, if we have a line-up of drivers, it is our job to put the drivers in who we think have the best chance of maximising the points for this team.

If circumstances arose where we were convinced that one of those was Juan, then we would be asking him to get back in the car. An ingredient of that would be a certain amount of driver enthusiasm to do so - if the driver is not enthusiastic to come and do the job then you are missing one of the fundamental ingredients that would have convinced us it was the right thing to do.

Q. So he has not been given a golden handshake then?

MW: No, he has not. The contract is running, it comes to an end at the end of this year and it wasn't necessarily required of us to give him a golden handshake. The reality is that we said: "Look, we have analysed the situation, we have analysed performance, attitude, approach etc. and we have come to the view that perhaps at the moment you don't have the mind in the right place to be doing this job."

In truth, he accepted it in a gracious and professional way and said, 'okay, if you don't want me in the car at the moment, that is fine.' That is a decision we took in respect of the French Grand Prix, a lot has been going on and obviously after Indianapolis there was a lot of soul searching by many people.

He went away, quickly I believe, commenced and concluded negotiations to go to NASCAR. That inevitably takes quite a lot of your focus and that was part of the ingredient that convinced us that we should be making the change that we have made.

Q. Has there been any pressure from sponsors, who have based marketing campaigns around Juan Pablo, to get him back in the car?

MW: Not unduly. Inevitably there are sponsors who are working directly with Juan Pablo and we are a racing team. Inevitably it is our job to do our best job as a team, we have to try and do the best job for our partners.

And I hope and believe that our partners have been with us long enough to understand what we stand for, and respect that if we, as a team, choose to change our driver line-up then we do so with the right intention. And that is we do the best job at race meetings, which is our primary role.

Q. As far as Pedro de la Rosa is concerned, even with the best will in the world he cannot be seen as the long-term future of McLaren. He is 35. Does he have any kind of shot for next year?

MW: He is a benchmark, isn't he? If you look at where other teammates have been to Kimi in recent races, what Pedro did in France was a respectable performance. I think he can build upon that and I am sure he will. The nice thing for us is that is creates a benchmark because the starting point is, if you are going to start changing that line-up then you have got to believe that what you are changing to is materially better. That is obviously the benchmark.

The nice thing about Pedro is that he is mature, intelligent and understands it all. Would he like to be promised next year's race drive? Of course he would. He is desperate to race for us and it is a delight that he is racing for us now. But he is also a realist, he is sensible, rational and objective in a way that perhaps not all drivers are.

I am sure he lays there in bed occasionally and thinks, 'I hope I can do this. I hope I can win a race this year and make it almost impossible for McLaren to go any other route.' And I hope he does. If he doesn't, I would be very disappointed. Any racing driver has got to think, 'Right, I have got to build on this opportunity and win races and convince them to keep me.'

Q. If he were to win a race, would that be quite a compelling argument to keep him on?

MW: Yes, it would be a very compelling argument. It would make the best case possible.

Q. Gary Paffett is in a slightly different situation. He can see Lewis concentrating on trying to win GP2 and having a long-term plan, whereas he is in an ideal situation to be put in now...

MW: Yes, he is. I think it is a question of learning. Gary is a very talented driver and we would not be investing in him unless we considered him to be capable of running in F1 and potentially capable of running in F1 with this team. He is on a learning curve and the reality is that he is ahead on that learning curve of Lewis at the moment.

But our view clearly, from the decision we have taken, is that you weigh up talent and you weigh up where they are on the learning curve and at the moment Pedro is considerably ahead of the learning curve and therefore we think the best option. It doesn't mean that potentially that Gary's peaked. He is a higher potential in the longer term, and it is the same with Lewis. They are all on different positions.

Gary started off doing, in the initial phase of testing, familiarisation with F1, then he was doing endurance work - engines, tyres etc. He has now moved to performance work. And the reality now is that probably three or four tests will be proper performance work with Gary. And that is part of the learning curve.

When we were charting that course we didn't think, 'oh, what are we going to do for the French Grand Prix.' Had we had the crystal ball, then maybe we would have engineered a steeper learning curve. But the reality is that if we had put Gary or Lewis in in France, then it would have been a massively tall order. If they had, under the pressure of the situation, under-performed or made a mistake, then we would be damaging their career.

We owe it to them to nurture them. We won't walk away from Lewis or Gary. Gary was a McLaren/Autosport Young Driver, he has been through Mercedes-Benz and he has been with us and he has to some extent that opportunity to learn, whereas there are other drivers that you have to take a risk with.

If you have got a driver that is not under the wing of the team that is committed to develop him, then we do see it sometimes that young drivers get thrown in when they are not ready. Sometimes they sink, and there have been many cases over the years where real talent has been squandered. F1 is a pretty unforgiving environment, isn't it? Bang, you are in the seat, and if you don't perform for a few races then you are out.

We don't have to do that with Gary or Lewis. If we want them to be real, credible options for next year then the best thing is not to throw them in the car prematurely because otherwise their confidence is eroded, people then start to get on their case.

As an organisation, we have promised nothing to any of these guys. What we say is that we undertake to work with you, and if you are good enough then trust us to follow what is right. Could we have put someone else in and bang he could have gone quicker than Pedro? Possibly. But I think that he has done a fantastic job so far. And in the next race he will be even more comfortable and perform better.

Q. How has Gary done in the performance phase of your testing?

MW: He is doing very, very well. He is a sensitive driver, he understands what is going on. F1, and I think we do many things badly in F1 like engine agreement and marketing arrangements, but it is in terms of the technical challenge such a massive step from anything else. He has learnt an awful lot. From where he was as DTM champion to today he has come a long, long way, he is a guy who has won in every formula that he has been in.

And until last year that was generally in under-funded or relatively poor teams. In DTM, to go and win against those boys, who have been around a bit, shows he is a winner. He is a likeable, grounded individual. I am sure he will win in F1 and maybe with this team, or maybe with another team. Let's see.

Q. With Juan Pablo, was he in breach of contract by announcing the NASCAR deal?

MW: Well, we didn't go there. I don't personally believe that... when you go down the breach route the lawyers become rich and it becomes antagonistic. We didn't even pull out the contract to try and understand, 'when he said that, when he did that,' or whatever. We took a pretty straightforward approach.

We decided that we would analyse the data, analyse the performance over his time with us and particularly focus on what happened at Indianapolis, and put some constructive criticisms forward. We said: 'This is our view, based upon this view we think that we should stand you down for the moment.

What is your view?' I am sure, we are all complex individuals and on the emotional side I am sure he would want to be in the car, but I think he understood our point of view in a mature and sensible way. Juan Pablo gets a bad press and sometimes he brings it upon himself, but he is a very likeable individual and sometimes when you are expecting him to be very emotional he is actually quite rational.

We deliberated on it after Indy. We said, look you go away and reflect, we will go away and reflect. We will talk to you. We were due to talk to him at the beginning of the week before France and he had already come to some conclusions before he rang Chip Ganassi.

I hope it will work for him in NASCAR and I think he is an outstanding driver and it is frustrating that we were not able to perhaps see the true potential of that talent in F1. We as a team are not without blame, we didn't extract it, but also Juan Pablo has to sit in the dark occasionally and think that he did not do everything he could have done to extract that talent.

Q. Williams had some problems with Juan Pablo during his time there. What is it about his character that he lacks, or what aspect is it that causes this?

MW: Well, I think Juan is a very passionate and consequently impetuous individual. And sometimes you liken Juan Pablo to that type of friend we all have. It is the one who, when they go out to a nightclub, they are not overtly aggressive and they don't go out to start a fight.

But when a fight breaks out they are stood in the middle of it. We have all got friends that are like that. When you look at that, in every individual case, you can find all the reasons why on this occasion it clearly wasn't his fault. But he was there.

With Juan, he is a passionate, exciting, sometimes slightly impulsive driver and maybe he has just been unlucky on occasions. But statistically when you mount those up over a career then you might think there is a common characteristic, just like your friend who gets mixed up in the fights at nightclubs.

Q. McLaren have very rarely gone for a young driver, because the first priority has always been the Constructors' Championship. With a young driver there is a learning curve that has to be catered for with points lost and sacrifices made...

MW: I think you're right. By choice, if you are leading to the question - would you rather have Lewis after a year with another team? The answer is, by choice you would do that. But you cannot always engineer those things. We have looked at that. It doesn't always pan out that way.

It is not quite the same but Mika Hakkinen was at Lotus, then became a test driver and we jumped him in - and at that stage he was relatively inexperienced. With Kimi, he didn't have an awful lot of experience. I think his first race for us was something like his 24th race in a car, so occasionally if you have got someone of that quality then you can do that.

With Lewis, if you put him in the car next year and he struggles then we will be criticised for bringing him on too quickly, but inevitably of course if we don't put him in, we will be criticised for squandering the opportunity. That is fine, because that is the business we are in. But at the end of the day we have got to make the decision that we think is right regardless of the criticism that we may subsequently occur. There is no absolute. We don't absolutely know, although we have got more data than most.

We have got the means of the testing, the development work he has been doing in the factory already, and I am sure we will have some car data and by then we will have access to his performance in GP2. And as part of our contract we have had access to data from Formula Renault and Formula Three.

We have got lots of data, more than most, and based upon that we will make a decision that we think is right. How it pans out? It is one of those things. If it works well we will say, we were confident and we never had any doubts, if it doesn't work out, well we were taking a measured risk and we thought it was the right thing. That is the game we play.

Q. Does the future change of Fridays make any difference - with the opportunity to get more mileage for young drivers?

MW: I actually do think that it will help. Depending on the precise details of that, if it pans out as was agreed in the Formula One Commission then it is a big help. The way in which the regulations are at the moment, it is an abysmal show on a Friday because we conserve tyres and engines. Clearly with more freedom in relation to engines and tyres and two 90 minutes sessions, then it takes some of the risk out of that process.

Don't get me wrong - we were supporting the change because we think it is good for F1. And it is good for F1 in terms of the show for the punter over the course of the weekend. Certainly people coming in on Friday, it is embarrassing if you don't have a third car and you are sat there through P1 rather than go there. It is good in that respect. It also creates the platform where, if F1 is minded to, it can save money in testing.

Q. Does the issue of trading an engine in exchange for placing a driver enter this scenario?

MW: I think if there was a credible team, would you be prepared to convince your good friends at Stuttgart to provide an engine to facilitate a drive for Lewis? Well, the answer is yes. But where would you go with a Mercedes-Benz engine and Lewis at the moment? I don't think there are a whole lot of options.

Q. What about if someone buys Midland?

MW: It sounds like somebody is. But I guess you need to understand their credentials a little bit more, and whether they have got the infrastructure and the wherewithal to get the job done. The problem is, we have in the past put Ricardo Zonta and Nick Heidfeld in other teams, we have paid for them to go elsewhere in the past.

It worked quite well with the independent teams but now the structure of the grid is quite different from where there used to be four or five big teams, some respectable middle order independent teams and some strugglers. And it is not quite that structure any more, so I don't see the opportunity. We have explored with a number of teams seats for Gary and for Lewis, and I think everyone wants to bring their own talent on but it is not easy to do that.

Q. Going back to Juan Pablo, are you happy to let his contract lapse?

MW: Not lapse, his contract is still in place until the last race. So contractually and technically we could require or request him to come and race this year.

Q. Unless he requests to terminate it?

MW: There is always a negotiation. He could phone up anytime to say I am desperate to get back in the car, what have I got to do to convince you? Or he could ring up and say, I don't care what you guys want to do I am not going to get back in the car. Who knows what is going to happen. We have a contract. We are resting him at the moment and we will see what happens in the future.

Q. It is hard for young drivers to come in at the moment, isn't it?

MW: The structure at the moment is not as easy to bring drivers in as it was, and that is a worry. If you go back to an original question - are you looking outside the current family of drivers? My view is that the top echelon of drivers is quite clear in the sport at the moment. Kimi, Fernando and Michael are still very much on that top echelon. You have got a second echelon of respectable drivers, and then it goes a bit thin.

We need to be careful, and find a suitable way to bring more drivers in. A lot of drivers here have been in the sport for some time. If you look at GP2, you see some names there still in GP2 who we ran when we had a Formula 3000 team about 10 years ago. And that is amazing really.

I think what would be good is that F3 and GP2, I think you should be allowed to stay in it for two years and then you have got to get out. And then also make each team have one rookie and one driver who has been around. I don't want to take anything away from (ASM/ART boss) Frederic Vasseur, who we partner, but what happens in these formulas is that a team is perceived to be the quickest.

Once it is doing a good job, they sign up the most experienced and competent drivers, and they then win again - partly because the team is doing a good job but also because of their experience.

It doesn't discourage people from hanging around too long. If you made every team have one rookie and another in his second year then you flush through the talent. I think there is not enough drivers through, and it would be in our interest to bring even more young guns coming through.