McLaren keen to give Alonso a leg-up
McLaren have vowed to weigh in and help future driver Fernando Alonso in his world championship battle with Michael Schumacher.
Alonso will join McLaren next season and he looked likely to arrive at Woking with consecutive world titles under his belt until a dip in form this month.
Schumacher won yesterday’s German Grand Prix to slash Alonso’s championship lead to 11 points.
The Spaniard was not helped by McLaren’s return to form which saw Kimi Raikkonen take third, pushing him down to fifth and costing him an extra point.
McLaren managing director Martin Whitmarsh is looking to deprive Ferrari of crucial points as well in the coming races.
He said: “It’s an exciting championship now, Renault are a strong team and Alonso is a great world champion. There is a common interest – we both want to beat Ferrari in the rest of the season.”
McLaren enjoyed the rare honour of being ahead of both Renaults at Hockenheim.
However, Whitmarsh’s pleasure at being the top Michelin runner was tempered by Ferrari’s dominance, which he hinted was down to superior Bridgestone tyres.
He added: “There are positives from the weekend, we had the second-quickest car here. But we weren’t going to beat the Ferrari-Bridgestone package so we took some risks on our race strategy.
“On a positive note we made progress, on a negative we weren’t a match for Ferrari this weekend.”
McLaren were not the only team enjoying a return to the front of the grid this weekend, thanks to Jenson Button’s efforts at Honda.
His superb qualifying effort helped him claim fourth place at the chequered flag to end a run of five races without a point.
Honda boss Nick Fry was in celebratory mood afterwards but insisted his team had never lost faith in their ability to improve.
He said: “It is interesting that people assume there was despair. People here have always been able to see blue skies ahead and everyone knows we are not going to give up.
“Everyone knows we have a lot coming to improve the car and as long as there is hope people are going to try hard.
“Heads have never dropped in the factory. We believe that the Honda team can succeed and that’s what we have got our focus on. One swallow does not make a summer but it is a step in the right direction.
“We have got some more small improvements for next week and bigger ones in Turkey so we will keep pressing on.”
