Mclaren to decide on driver over winter

McLaren will wait until after the end of the season before deciding on Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate for 2010, team boss Martin Whitmarsh has said.

Since Ferrari set what had been a stalled driver market in motion last month by confirming Fernando Alonso’s impending move to the team, much of the silly season focus has turned on McLaren’s 2010 plans with Heikki Kovalainen’s position at the Woking outfit having looked increasingly precarious in recent months.

A return to the team for Kimi Raikkonen, who is being replaced by Alonso at Ferrari, has been strongly mooted – although interest in the former champion’s services from Toyota has now emerged with team president John Howett confirming on Tuesday that it had offered the Finn a contract for next year.

However, with just over a week to go until the final race of the year in Abu Dhabi, Whitmarsh admits McLaren's decision will now have to wait until the off-season.

Asked at Interlagos last weekend if the public could expect an announcement before the final race, Whitmarsh said: “No, I don’t think you are now."

“The end of the season is accelerating upon us.”

Whitmarsh says McLaren’s main focus is currently on ensuring it develops a 2010 car capable of winning races from the off in Bahrain next March having had to spend much of this season trying to catch up with the front-runners after its current MP4-24 proved well off the pace at the start of the year.

He reveals the team is taking a totally new development path with its 2010 challenger, adding that unresolved issues such as a decision on the second driver are on the back burner until the winter.

“What we are really concentrating on back in Woking is that we are developing an entirely new car with quite an aggressive engineering programme,“ Whitmarsh added.

“We intend to start the season much more competitively than we started this one.

“That’s the priority and in the meanwhile we will see what we can do in these two races.

“I think that is our concentration. We will concentrate on some of those other issues after the season now.”