Planet-F1

Whitmarsh: Lewis could be streaking away

Thursday 21st August 2008

Compared with last year, Lewis Hamilton has had a problematic season, according to McLaren CEO Martin Whitmarsh.

Hamilton hardly set a foot wrong in his rookie season in 2007, failing to score points in only two races of which one was a DNF in the penultimate race of the season in China.

Although he is leading this year's World Championship by five points, he hasn't had things all his own way. In the 11 races so far this campaign he has failed to pick up points Bahrain, Canada and France while a tyre puncture in Hungary cost him a possible podium finish.

Whitmarsh believes the Brit would've been "streaking away" if he had the consistency of his first season.

"Lewis has had a break. He comes into the last section of the Championship leading it," he told SPEEDtv.

"It's been an interesting World Championship, because of what happened in Canada and what happened in Hungary.

"Lewis' year, by the extraordinary standards of the consistency of his first season, has been problematic.

"He could go away and dwell on 'if, if, if'. Total that to another 20 points, and he could be streaking away."

The McLaren CEO also revealed that the team are targeting an improvement of 0.15sec per race.

"We've been pushing hard and Ferrari have been pushing hard," he said.

"The outcome is going to be determined by the team that continues to develop its car at the fastest rate. There is a race on between us from one race to another.

"We've got some new parts for Valencia. We've had three races with a lot of parts; there's a little bit less this time.

"Nevertheless, our goal and mission is to improve the car by 0.15sec per race event. That's a tall order. Occasionally you can outstrip that, other times you fall behind on an individual race-by-race basis."