By Sam Cooper
April 27 2007

After getting bombarded with poor performance comments from the press after the Bahrain Grand Prix, Martin Whitmarsh has said how much of an impact Fernando Alonso has made to the McLaren teams return to form.

In the Bahrain race Fernando missed out on fourth position after he lost time to Nick Heidfeld in the second stint in the race, where both McLaren drivers suffered with their optional softer tyres.

“There is no doubt that Fernando has made a very significant and worthwhile contribution to our programme,” Whitmarsh continued. “It is his honesty, clarity, sincerity. He happens to be an extremely nice human being, but one who is very focused and intent on winning races and World Championships. It is the way that he goes about that, he quietly but insistently puts across his point of view, which has enormous credibility and credence within the team.” Whitmarsh told the official McLaren site.

Next up on the formula one calendar, is Fernando’s home grand prix, the Spanish grand prix. “Fernando feels that with the crowd behind him he can lift himself to even greater heights,” said Whitmarsh. “We as an organisation have to make sure that whilst we are at the Circuit de Catalunya, we continue to focus on our job and minimise the distraction that arises.”