Lose the 2008 title or win it, McLaren faces the consequences

Martin Whitmarsh stated this week in the magazine The Guardian that losing the 2008 driver title would have been dramatic, morally, for the team in this 2009 season; much more so than for Lewis Hamilton.

Last year, both world titles were decided during the last Grand Prix of the season, in Brazil. It was Lewis Hamilton who claimed the driver’s title by one point ahead of Felipe Massa (Ferrari), also seizing the record of the youngest world champion from Alonso. On the constructor side, however, it was the Ferrari team that won. For the new director of the McLaren team, Lewis Hamilton’s title saved the morale of his troops.

« If Lewis [Hamilton] had not won the championship last year, I think it would have been more difficult for us as a team, rather than for him », said Martin Whitmarsh to the London newspaper.

« We would have had a very peculiar, very dull atmosphere this winter, » continues the Englishman. « You have to imagine the scene, representing a real psychological test for Lewis as well, wondering if he hadn’t won, ‘Will this always happen?’ »

Hamilton indeed won a title by one point over Massa in 2008. The previous year, in 2007, he had lost the title by one point to Räikkönen. Losing a title twice by a one-point margin would have been mentally tough, but Whitmarsh sees him as young and strong. « He is currently in a very early stage of his career. Losing a title would have been much less significant for him than for Ron [Dennis] or myself… »

A new question now arises for Whitmarsh. Will Hamilton be able to continue winning? The Englishman sees this new season as a set of puzzles to solve, including this one. “We are heading into the unknown this year, and Hamilton is one of the points that intrigue me the most,” comments Ron Dennis’s successor. “He [Hamilton] has already achieved his dream, very young. Studies have shown that many athletes who achieve their dream early in their career feel a sense of fatigue. This is the case for the Olympic Games, for example, and I fear that now he doesn’t know what to do, wondering ‘What can I achieve now?'”

Even if the results are not there this season, Whitmarsh wants to give Hamilton time, and is convinced that he will want to win more and more titles, to prove to the world that he deserves his status as a champion.