McLaren not to be ruled out of the title fight

Martin Whitmarsh has warned McLaren’s rivals not to write Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton off the battle for the world title, despite their point disadvantage.

At the moment Hamilton has a gap of 28 point between himself and Mark Webber, the championship leader. Button has 3 points less than his team-mate.

Besides having to be in the top positions the McLaren drivers also have to expect poor results from the leading drivers in order to have a chance to win the title.

Nevertheless, Whitmarsh says that McLaren won’t give up until the final race and that it wouldn’t be clever to rule out his drivers yet.

"With three races remaining, and 75 points on the table for the drivers, it would be unwise to write off Jenson, Lewis or McLaren," said Whitmarsh.

"Both drivers have won world championships before - they understand the difficulties of such a unique situation, and both have learned how to deliver their best under high pressure. They will be ready for this battle,” added Whitmarsh.

McLaren’s boss says that the most important factor in this battle will be the consistency. “While we will continue with our aggressive development strategy, bringing further new components to this race, we're mindful of the need to bag points at every race,” he said.

Over the last three races Hamilton has only secured 10 points, all gathered in Japan, where the Briton was hit by a gearbox failure. The 2008 world champion had already been penalized for changing the gearbox ahead of the race, but he won’t be facing the same situation in Korea.

This issue was clarified by Whitmarsh would said that “Following his gearbox issue in Suzuka, Lewis will not face a second successive five-place grid penalty this weekend. The gearbox regulations were framed to ensure teams weren't penalised twice for the same gearbox issue, so Lewis will go into the weekend without risk of further penalty."