McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh has singled out Red Bull's Mark Webber as being their main threat in the driver's championship, after a Belgian GP weekend that saw three of the five championship contenders fail to score a point.
Lewis Hamilton retook the championship lead after taking victory in the Belgian race, with Webber trailing him home in second place to limit the damage to a three point lead for the British driver.
But with Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and the second McLaren man of Jenson Button all failing to score at the Spa weekend, Whitmarsh believes that the team now has one clear main rival, though he conceded that the other drivers were still in the hunt.
"He is mathematically the closest," Whitmarsh pointed out with a smile, "He is a strong driver and he is driving well, so he has got to be the main opposition. But there are a lot of drivers still in it.
"We've had a fantastic championship, we are past the middle now, and it is great to be leading the drivers' championship. We feel we should have been leading the constructors' championship too, but we are one point behind and it is all to race for now."
He also hinted that he wasn't expecting a change of strategy from the team towards favouring Webber over Sebastian Vettel, despite the German dropping some 31 points off the championship lead.
"I don't stop to think about it," he shrugged, cheekily adding that: "I think they quite like their younger driver, so I doubt they will put their weight behind Mark."
When asked about the possibility of the Red Bull team favouring Webber over Vettel after the race, Red Bull boss Christian Horner simply chirped: "That would be team orders. And those are not allowed!"
Webber himself refused to suggest that he was now a clear championship contender from his team mate, despite suggesting that the time for a team pecking order might be nearing in the post-race press conference.
"I have 28 points more than Seb, with Jenson and Fernando further behind," Webber scrawled drunkenly on his personal website.
"The picture looks different to how it did 24 hours ago, but there are still six races/150 points available, so I'm not getting too excited. Roll on Monza."
Whitmarsh also suggested that the championship remained "tight", despite the gap that Hamilton and Webber were able to pull on their rivals in Belgium.
He suggested that the McLaren team had regained some momentum in Spa, after falling off the pace in recent rounds, but suggested that the team is aware that it will still be tough to stay ahead.
"We have some momentum back," Whitmarsh smiled after the team scored it's first win since the Canadian Grand Prix in June, "We knew we had to come here and try for a win. We delivered that. And we are going to go to Monza now and see what we can do there.
"Everyone keeps asking how important each race is. This is a tight championship so it doesn't matter if it is here, Monza – Singapore whatever. It is a tough championship and the points swing backwards and forwards. They all count and we will be doing our best in all of them."
He also downplayed the idea that McLaren would be particularly strong at the next race at the high-speed Monza, with the track set to play into the team's straight-line speed advantage over their rivals.
"People are saying that we are going to be very, very strong at Monza but I don't know how they deduce that," he shrugged humbly.
"We aim to be as strong as we can, but I don't know how other people have such confidence. They have obviously got more information than me."
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