Formula One news

McLaren has the right pace - Whitmarsh

McLaren Mercedes' new driver line-up for the 2008 season, Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen, will make their race debut as teammates in Australia next weekend. After a troubled 2007 season, the team is keen to get back to racing and team boss Martin Whitmarsh believes they are where they want to be in terms of performance.
 

"The team has completed, and in fact exceeded, our planned pre-season development plan with the MP4-23," Whitmarsh said. "The car is over 90% new from the car that finished the Brazilian Grand Prix and is the result of over 1000 people in Woking, Brixworth and Stuttgart working intensely to get it to the grid in Melbourne."

"2007 was an interesting year for the team; no-one could have predicted how the season was going to pan out," he added. "All we are focused on now is eagerly anticipating the next challenge. Within the team there is fantastic atmosphere at the moment, particularly between our drivers. They are working well together, they like each other, you can see how much they genuinely respect each other and importantly they want to beat each other, which is how we want it to be. Heikki is of course new to us this season and he is a very likeable, intelligent and very talented individual. He has already fostered a great relationship with the team, and based on the way the drivers and the team have been working together in testing we are aiming for a good year."

"With Lewis and Heikki, we have two racing drivers this year who are very keen to come out of the 2008 season as World Champions," Whitmarsh went on. "Naturally Lewis enters this year as one of the favourites, a testament to what he achieved in his first year. Heikki has gelled fantastically into the team, he is working very well with everyone and he has the capability to win. Every season is a new chapter, our drivers, the team, our technology Partners are all working incredibly hard to ensure we have the best equipment possible to go racing."

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