Whitmarsh delighted with Hamilton
Tuesday 12th July 2011
McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh believes Lewis Hamilton answered his critics with Sunday's British Grand Prix performance.
Whitmarsh, though, now feels it is time for the team to do likewise in the wake of a below-par display by their own high standards.
Hamilton conjured a sterling drive, one that countered the negative comments regarding his driving style in the build-up to the race, finishing fourth in a car nowhere near as quick as Ferrari or Red Bull after starting 10th.
In particular, McLaren misjudged the early conditions and the 26-year-old's stellar start as he was forced to enter fuel-saving mode 15 laps from home.
"In difficult conditions Lewis drove a great race," said Whitmarsh.
"He has to be congratulated for discipline and control to race a car in which he had to back off, to save fuel, to coast.
"It sounds easy, but your tyres and brakes cool off, the balance changes and it is much more difficult to drive a car when it's not on the sweet spot, but he did a great job.
"I think it was a drive in response to the critics, just avoiding the podium in a car that wasn't the quickest.
"It would have been very easy, under the conditions, to have become frustrated, to have not saved the required fuel, to have lost focus and balance when in effect you are having to let drivers past.
"It's not a comfortable place to be, but he drove without mistake, with the right levels of passion and aggression, and above all with the right level of discipline and control throughout."
As for McLaren, their gaffe with Hamilton's fuel was compounded by one of Jenson Button's pit crew who lost a wheel nut at his final stop.
It resulted in Button being allowed to leave without his right wheel firmly in place, with the 31-year-old forced to pull over within yards of setting off as it began to work loose.
When you throw in McLaren's troubles in adapting to the change to the diffuser regulations, it was primarily a weekend to forget.
Whitmarsh knows his team have to raise their game, adding: "It is accepted and acknowledged there is more pressure on a team like McLaren than the majority of the teams in this paddock.
"I don't have a problem with that because actually the pressure is from within us. We expect to win.
"If we ever sat back and said 'Well, that was okay, it was fourth place, nearly a podium', and started to congratulate ourselves, then it would be the beginning of the end.
"We have to be disappointed all the time we are not winning any of the races.
"Sometimes that is a positive motivating force, other times it can bubble over into a destructive frustration.
"It can be amplified in some things you say, but you have to accept that is part of the game."
Credit: ESPN STAR (www.espnstar.com)
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