Martin Whitmarsh believes McLaren did all it could to re-sign Lewis Hamilton, but eventually it wasn’t enough following confirmation that he will leave the team for Mercedes.
McLaren matched Mercedes monetary offer, but reportedly couldn’t match the offer in other areas such as sponsorship commitments.
Whitmarsh refused to blame himself, McLaren, Hamilton nor Hamilton’s management XIX Entertainment for the break-up.
“What we’ve got to do is acknowledge that we didn’t agree terms with Lewis management and acknowledge that for Lewis, McLaren has been a great chapter in his life,” he told Sky Sports News on Friday.
“He’s been a great driver in this team and we now look forward to; one, ensuring that after the interest of today, we get ourselves focussed again on the six races that we have ahead of us in this year’s world championship. All of which we can win. World Championships that we can win. We look forward to an exciting future.
When asked if the 2008-champions management were to blame for giving him poor advise, he replied: “If the question is ‘do I blame 19 [XIX]?’, then the answer is that I don’t. Lewis is a great driver but has to make decisions about his life. We had lots of talks, went into lots of details and drew up lots of complex contracts. We negotiated lots of details and lots of freedom – it was a very good commercial offer that we made.
“We went a long way to make a good offer to Lewis but ultimately it takes two to get a signature. We clearly didn’t agree terms and have moved in different directions.”
