Whitmarsh fighting to defend McLaren
Sunday 10th July 2011
Martin Whitmarsh came out fighting in defence of McLaren as he insisted: "We haven't turned into chumps overnight."
The ban on off-throttle blown diffusers and subsequent technical row has left McLaren clearly compromised, as evidenced in Saturday's qualifying session for the British Grand Prix.
Although Jenson Button lines up fifth, it is the fact he is so far behind Red Bull and Ferrari in terms of time that chances of a home win tomorrow are, at this stage, remote.
As for Lewis Hamilton, another team mistake as they sent him out on used soft tyres at the start of the top-10 shootout, when all those around him employed a fresh set, means he lines up 10th.
At the moment it is a case of whatever can go wrong will go wrong for McLaren, which prompted Whitmarsh into an embattled speech.
Rather than wait for a barrage of inevitable questions about his team's performance and technical issues at the start of the post-qualifying 'Meet the Team' media session, Whitmarsh simply took the microphone and launched into a near eight-minute soliloquy.
Amongst its highlights, and with Button and Hamilton sat either side of him, Whitmarsh said: "This team and these great drivers cannot be happy.
"If there is any doubt, we are not content, we are disappointed. That is a fact and is quite obvious.
"We can bore everyone silly about diffusers, exhaust gases etc. The fact is we did not put on a competitive showing in qualifying, and we know that.
"Do we know precisely why? Not entirely. But it's reasonable to assume in those (regulation) changes we haven't been able to respond to them, or the impact on them has been greater.
"To go from what has been a competitive car to what looked fairly uncompetitive, there is no magic, that is what's happened.
"We understand that and we accept it, but that doesn't mean we are giving up on the weekend.
"Tomorrow maybe we want rain, a lot of confusion, but we are also realistic because on the evidence of today our car is not good enough. That's how it is."
For now, Whitmarsh can only assert McLaren will find a way to fight back.
"We will not be content until we recover," added Whitmarsh.
"Can we recover quick enough? We are going to be tough enough, and resilient enough to plough through. That is what we do as a team.
"We aren't resting on our laurels. We have a fantastic heritage and we are used to winning races. We don't enjoy not winning races, it is not much fun.
"But there is no team in the world that can recover a situation as quickly and as strongly as this team.
"We've proved it before. We don't like having to do it, but we do occasionally have to do it, and that's what we will aim to do in the course of the next few weeks.
"Our focus is to get back to being as competitive as possible, win races and see where we go from there, but I can tell you, we have not turned into chumps overnight."
The technical debate, that initially appeared to put Red Bull on the back foot, was not the case as they locked out the front row, with Mark Webber on pole.
Another meeting of the Technical Working Group is scheduled for Sunday in the hope of clearing up the mess once and for all.
At present there is a degree of sympathy for reverting back to the regulations as they were under a fortnight ago before the ban was imposed.
FIA technical director Charlie Whiting has stated that will only happen as long as there is unanimous agreement amongst the teams.
It is understand the likes of Williams and Sauber are weighing up their options, whilst Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari feel it best if the status quo were restored.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said: "Obviously we need all the teams to agree to move on and put this behind us, which we're hopefully not far from achieving.
"We're trying to find a solution which is clear moving forward to put this behind us.
"The most simplistic thing would be to move back to exactly where we were two weeks ago."
Credit: ESPN STAR (www.espnstar.com)
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