McLaren CEO pleased with developing driver relationship.
McLaren Mercedes CEO Martin Whitmarsh says he is pleased with the relationship developing between drivers Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen heading into the opening round of the Formula 1 season in Melbourne next weekend.
After a campaign beset by in-time politics and bickering last season between Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, the team will aim to make the headlines on track during 2008 as it seeks to fight for the title and Whitmarsh said he was pleased with how the new driver pairing has worked together thus far.
"2007 was an interesting year for the team; no-one could have predicted how the season was going to pan out," he admitted. "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."
Whitmarsh added that he feels both drivers have the potential to win during 2008, with Hamilton going into the season as one of the title favourites and Kovalainen also eager to make the break-through onto the top step of the podium after a debut season with Renault that saw flashes of brilliance in what we a tough campaign for the regie.
"Every single member of the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team is an incredibly competitive individual and we all desperately want to win," Whitmarsh continued. "This is the case for the drivers, management, engineers, mechanics, production, administration. We have a great team of people, we have great racing drivers and we want to win.
"With Lewis and Heikki, we have two racing drivers this year who are very keen to come out of the 2008 season as world hampions. 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 and our technology partners are all working incredibly hard to ensure we have the best equipment possible to go racing."
