Formula One news

Shareholders to decide Whitmarsh destiny

The fate of McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh will be decided by the team's shareholders, he has admitted. Whitmarsh, who assumed the role from Ron Dennis for 2009, has experienced a tough start to the season which includes the suspending of team manager Dave Ryan last week.

Whitmarsh has explained of how he was left with no other option but to suspend his long-term friend and colleague, after Ryan provided FIA race stewards with 'deliberately misleading information' following an on-track incident in the Australian Grand Prix on 29 March. Since freezing the activities of the 35-year McLaren veteran, however, Whitmarsh has admitted to his own mistakes surrounding the situation, which began whilst he was on a short holiday.

Whitmarsh explains the McLaren 'lie-gate' saga at Sepang

"At a time like this you think about what you got involved with this sport for, and it wasn't for this sort of thing," 50-year-old Whitmarsh said. The situation has generated rumours including World Champion Lewis Hamilton leaving the team, as well as Whitmarsh thinking about his own career path: "Well it wouldn't be true if I said I wasn't thinking about it," he admitted.

"You also think about what is best for the company and this great team, and this hasn't been a great experience for me, it wasn't what I started out to experience 20 years ago. For the longer term I can contemplate my own future. Of course it is not self-determining, it's for the shareholders of this team to take a view upon, and that's something they have to decide with regards to the best solution."

"I'm not resigning this weekend," he surprisingly added. "We've made a commitment to look at how we arrived in this situation, and we've got to learn from it to be better in future; we will do a better job, but I think that it is wrong to rule anything out - I've got to look at what is the best way forward for this team, and how we can get better in the future."

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