Winning the world title isn't rocket science but McLaren aren't taking any chances

I HAVE seen McLaren's future and he's a shocker. He laughs, he jokes, he pokes fun at the opposition and if he is fluent in the contorted version of Engineering English known as "Ronspeak", then he's in no hurry to converse in it. His name is Martin Whitworth and he's Ron Dennis's replacement at the head of McLaren.

Whitworth has long been perceived by many in Formula One as a sort of mini-me to Dennis's Dr Evil, but that appears to be wide of the mark. For anyone who has ever heard Dennis swat away reasonable questions with an array of impenetrably convoluted responses, Whitworth may as well be from another planet. He may not divulge any state secrets but he seems genuinely incapable of giving an evasive answer to a straight question. Want to know who McLaren need to beat to win the Championship? No problem. Wonder whether the team ever have second thoughts about treating all their drivers equally? Glad you asked. What fallout has there been from Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso's spat? Funny you should ask that. It was never like this in Dennis's day.

For someone who was once described as a technocrat with "all the corporate charisma of a speak-your-weight machine", the 48-year-old former rocket scientist is doing a good job of reinventing himself as a wisecracking, tell-it-like-it-is team boss. And that is effectively what Dennis's understudy has become. He may insist that "the last time I looked Ron was the team principal and the reality is that he will be team principal until he doesn't want to be team principle", but he also acknowledges that "I run the day-to-day stuff which involves the race team". There is an unmistakeable sense that one of the most successful team bosses in the history of F1 has taken a step back from the fray.

Whitworth's ascension is, according to insiders, a done deal. Whitworth, though, will be under no illusions: he knows that filling the shoes of the man who uncovered Senna, Prost, Mansell, Hakkinen, Raikkonen and Hamilton and turned McLaren into the most consistently successful team in Formula One will be easier said than done.

It's early days of course, but after a year characterised by a poisonous feud between Alonso and Hamilton, plus the $100m fine and disqualification from the constructors' championship in the wake of Stepneygate, Whitworth cuts a surprisingly relaxed figure. When we spoke on Friday afternoon, he even spiced some candid insight with the odd barb at some of his rival teams. He was particularly blunt when it came to his assessment of the Grand Prix field for 2008.

"Our drivers (Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen] came in from testing saying that they were very excited, that they think we have a car we can win with. We certainly believe that we're in a reasonable position to win it (the Championship]," he said. "The car is quicker than last year and quicker than the competition. We sense that we and Ferrari are very close, but that we're both some way ahead of the opposition. It's very difficult to tell because you never know what fuel loads teams have been running with, but we've been very disciplined and we think Ferrari have been too. Unless we screw-up next week in Australia, then I think you'll see McLaren and Ferrari on the two front rows of the grid."

Ferrari were two seconds quicker at Barcelona this year than last, while Hamilton was quickest on two of the three practice days. Most of the paddock expect a straight fight between Ferrari's world champion Kimi Raikkonen and Hamilton, with Massa and Kovalainen not far behind, while even Fernando Alonso has admitted that he has at best a 30% chance of winning the title.

Whitworth is even more forthright when it comes to the possibility of any team but Ferrari challenging McLaren. "We think that BMW haven't closed the gap on us, but that the midfield has closed the gap on BMW, which should make for an interesting season."

Some within Formula One have openly wondered whether the travails of last year will result in a hangover this year. Whitworth gives that notion short shrift.

"Last year was difficult but we are focused on going motor racing and morale is very good. We have a battle-hardened team that knows what it takes to win. We're not delusionary, as some other teams are – mentioning no names!" he says, laughing. "We think we can win, and while we don't want to dwell on the past, there's no point being naïve. People say we didn't do a good enough job last year and I agree with them. Our expectations of ourselves are even higher than other people's. We were head-on with Ferrari and we lost. That hurt, but the reality is that Ferrari deserved to beat us. I'm over that – must be the therapy."

But surely there must be moments when he wonders what might have been. To Whitworth, this is less a question, more a statement of the bleeding obvious. "We all try to force losses to the back of our minds, but they're always there. I don't, for instance, want to revisit those 32 seconds of transmission failure in Brazil, but I occasionally think back on that. It no longer pops into my mind every hour of every day, just occasionally."

He says he bears Ferrari no ill will and argues: "I want to beat them because they're the best opposition, but I don't want to beat them any more badly this year than I did a year ago." He says last season strengthened his conviction that the McLaren way is the right way to go about motor racing. In particular, he defends the system where McLaren don't have a lead driver, and both drivers have equality of opportunity and resources. It was the system that was at the root of the fall-out between Alonso and Hamilton which resulted in the Spaniard's departure.

"You have to be true to what you believe as a philosophy, and ever since the days of Senna and Prost that is how McLaren have gone motor racing," he says. "Did we suffer last year? Sure we did, because if we'd sacrificed Lewis to ensure Fernando won the world championship, then that's what would have happened. But if we'd done that, would Lewis have then signed a five-year contract? Would we have been able to persuade Heikki to come here? The answer is probably no. Every young driver wants to come to McLaren because they're treated on merit and that's not going to change. We remain impartial."

That is more than most other teams, and certainly more than Renault, where Alonso demanded that Kovalainen be shipped on after a debut season that started erratically but ended with an outstanding second half of the season that saw him finish a whopping nine points ahead of team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella, the only comparison that really matters in F1. An impressive season was capped by a second-placed finish at Suzuka after starting 11th on the grid. The Spaniard didn't like the look of Kovalainen, instead opting for Nelson Piquet Jnr, who is seen as a makeweight by informed paddock opinion.

By contrast, the Finn should give Hamilton a run for his money. It'll help that they're old friends from their karting days (Hamilton is believed to have lobbied strongly for his hiring), but as Whitworth says, the priority is that both drivers are fast. "We have two relative novices but both have an exceptional pedigree and both are very fast. The reason why Heikki was the best option for us was primarily because he drives the car very fast," says Whitworth. "It's great that he's very chatty for a Finn; that he's a straightforward, intelligent, humorous individual. It's great that he's injected a lot of enthusiasm and is strong both mentally and physically, that he is a good fit in terms of temperament. But those are bolt-ons: the bottom line is that we expect him to win races this year and give Lewis a hard time."

Who knows, says Whitworth, he may even turn out to be as much of a surprise as Hamilton. "None of us predicted that Lewis would get nine consecutive podiums or that he could well go on to be the best racing driver in the history of Formula One, a phenomenon, so who knows what lies in store for Heikki?"

They're big on unknown quantities at McLaren; it's what has given them their cutting edge over the past 30 years. And who knows, Whitworth may just turn out to be the biggest surprise of them all.