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Whitmarsh: McLaren developing for 2010

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh has vowed that the team will keep developing the MP4/24 following Lewis Hamilton’s breakthrough victory in the recent Hungarian Grand Prix.

Whitmarsh believes that the car, which began the season uncompetitively, is capable of more successes this season and will form the aerodynamic basis for a championship contender in 2010.

“We knew what we had to do, we just had to find a way to achieve our goal and I think we have made significant progress with the car, as you can see from the results on the track,” said Whitmarsh. “We won’t stop at that we are going to continue to develop this car.

“But more importantly we want to ensure that we have got a competitive car for next season.

“The aerodynamic regulation changes for next year are negligible,” he added. “We obviously have the prohibition of refuelling, but that doesn’t effect the overall aerodynamic package so I think we have got every reason to be confident. At the same time we mustn’t be complacent.

“A lot of teams have already stopped development on this year and started on next year and we have got to make sure we do a better job than them.

“The goal of this team is to be out there winning races and the world championship next year.”

Whitmarsh also outlined the huge undertaking McLaren had gone through to make the MP4/24 a race-winner after beginning the year considerably slower than it’s rivals - Hungary also marked the first podium finish for the team in 2009.

“As the season progressed… while potentially we had a car, which the fundamental characteristics were good, we were, for a variety of different reasons, someway behind in terms of aerodynamic performance,” said Whitmarsh.

“And while we made progress in a short period of time, I sensed it was coming to a plateau of performance. Because we weren’t, as the season progressed, able to maintain that momentum in our development.

“That required us to have a dramatic rethink. It coincided with the run-in to our home grand prix [at Sillverstone in July]. It was a very difficult and challenging time because we made some decisions, and sometimes you have to step back to go forward.

“We made some fundamental changes to the weight distribution and we started to accept that we needed a completely different aerodynamic philosophy,” he added. “Perhaps inadvertently we had got ourselves into a cul-de-sac of development and we needed to reverse out of that.”

Whitmarsh added that after a difficult first season as the man fully in charge of McLaren’s F1 team, he had been ‘immensely proud’ to stand on the podium in Budapest and accept the constructors’ trophy.

“To stand on the podium as team principal is a very proud moment for me personally because I am proud to be a member of this team,” he said. “I am proud of what everyone has done. It has been a fantastic effort to recover. It’s an amazing effort by everyone.

“It is clear now that other teams were putting a huge amount of resource, having effectively given up under the old technical regulations, and also having been slightly more adventurous in their interpretations of the rules than we could afford to be.

“That gave them a headstart and we went into this year, nine months behind a lot of our competitors. That’s why it’s been a real battle.”

The full official McLaren interview with Martin Whitmarsh

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