McLaren want Kimi, and are impressed by Hamilton

By Karl King
May 9 2006

Current McLaren driver Juan Pablo Montoya looks increasingly unlikely to retain his position at the Silver Arrows in 2007, alongside defending champion Fernando Alonso. McLaren's CEO Martin Whitmarsh has maintained that he'd prefer Kimi over Juan Pablo, and mentioned Lewis Hamilton's brilliant drive in GP2 at the Nurburgring.

''We've made no secret of the fact that we would prefer Kimi ... to remain in the team,'' Whitmarsh told the Guardian newspaper.

He said: ''To that end we've given him the maximum amount of time to decide what he wants to do.''

"We really want to keep as much pressure and sense of anticipation off Lewis's shoulders while he concentrates on his first priority, which is winning the GP2 title," he commented on Hamilton, mentioning that his performance at the last race was 'really outstanding stuff.'