F1: McLaren aim to recover

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh sounded a note of defiance following his team's worst weekend of the season.

Lewis Hamilton retired on lap 24 with a gearbox failure and Jenson Button was a lowly eighth and embarrassingly lapped by winner Mark Webber who now leads the drivers' championship.

It resulted in a miserable points haul of just four, their lowest of the year, and they are also now behind Red Bull Racing in the constructors' standings.

McLaren last night closed their factory from midnight, as per the two-week summer shutdown, but Whitmarsh has vowed no stone will be left unturned on their return in the team's bid to stem the tide.

"Obviously we're disappointed with our haul of world championship points in Hungary," said Whitmarsh.

"But we remain in hot contention for the drivers' and constructors' championships, and it's still all to play for in the last seven grands prix of the season.

"After the summer shutdown we'll come back fully refreshed and utterly determined to apply ourselves as hard as is humanly possible to take world championship honours this season.

"We've lots of good people, lots of good ideas, and we're prepared to do lots of work.

"We always knew this year's world championship was going to be a tough battle, but we're up for that, so bring it on."

Much work, though, will need to be done to get the McLaren up to speed in contrast to the flying Red Bulls and strong Ferraris.

As good as Hamilton and Button are, they can only do so much when the car is lacking in pace, which is why they are both naturally hoping for improvements for the next race in Belgium on August 29.

Hamilton has every faith in his team's ability as he said: "It's a pity to have a fault at this stage in the year, but that's racing.

"When you push the car to the limit these things can happen.

"Now we have to go away and try and learn from this. We have to work hard so we don't have these problems for the rest of the year.

"As for me, I have to keep my head up, keep pushing, come back and fight for more victories."

Button is convinced the team's troubles of the last two weekends will be resolved, and they will soon hit the front again.

"This is a very positive, strong team. We've been in difficult situations before and we will definitely jump out of this," said Button.

"We've the break coming up, but hopefully we'll go into the race at Spa and take the fight to the Red Bulls.

"There's obviously a lot of work to do, all the boys know that and hopefully we will head out there with a package for Spa.

"I'm positive the guys can move the car forward. I'm going to give as much feedback as I can and hopefully we can close in on the front four."