Whitmarsh: McLaren is keen to treat its drivers “fairly”

For Martin Whitmarsh, director of the McLaren team, an internal crisis like the one Red Bull is experiencing following the Malaysian Grand Prix could not happen at Woking. He indeed stated that he is against team orders and prefers to let the drivers fight, even if it means paying the price. Although Vettel has apologized, Whitmarsh believes that the triple world champion went too far by not respecting his superior’s orders: “The team comes above all, and the drivers have learned to respect that. It’s very serious if you ask a driver to do something and he doesn’t do it. That could break a contract.”

« You cannot manage these drivers through discipline or by threatening to break their contract. Unless you’re seriously annoyed », Whitmarsh however admitted. « You cannot succeed through discipline. There must be trust. I’ve had discussions where we talked about what might happen during a race, and I’ve always told the driver that the decision was theirs. »

To support his claims, the McLaren boss recalled the example of the duel between Alonso and Hamilton in 2007, when they were both driving for the same team. Fernando Alonso, then a double world champion, could have been favored but that was not the case. Whitmarsh preferred to see his two drivers go head-to-head, risking losing the world championship title, which was ultimately won by Räikkönen in his Ferrari: « When you are the team boss and you see your drivers touch, people want to know how you will react. I always say ‘let them go’ and if it ends badly, you must be ready to say ‘I was wrong’. But I don’t want to criticize any other team that does things differently, because in 2007 we could have won the championship if we had favored one of our drivers. »

« If we had sat in an office at the factory to decide which of the two should be champion in 2007, it would not have seemed right to me. Of course, I am disappointed that we lost the championship, but I also feel that we acted in the right way », the Briton said. « I remember talking to our drivers before the race. I told them that if they wanted to win the world championship, they had to be able to look in the mirror and say ‘I won it’ and not ‘it was given to me.’ »

The head of the English team clarified that this is not a criticism of other teams, admitting that they all have different visions and priorities. At McLaren, it seems they are playing the transparency card: “We always try to treat our drivers fairly and transparently, they know what we expect,” concluded Whitmarsh. “If I were a race driver, I would find it very difficult to do such a dangerous and demanding job knowing that my opportunities could be restricted. We want both our drivers to be able to win if they have the opportunity.”