MCLAREN PRINCIPAL MARTIN Whitmarsh is confident Lewis Hamilton will sign a new contract to remain with the Formula One team.

Hamilton, who won a world title with the British team in 2008, is out of contract at the end of the season and is believed to be unhappy with the car’s speed so far this term.

The 27-year-old Briton has won just once so far in 2012 – in Canada last month – and he is in fourth place in the drivers’ championship standings, 37 points adrift of leader Fernando Alonso.

Although there has been speculation linking the Englishman with a move to another team, Whitmarsh is confident he will ink a new deal with McLaren.

“I think we will (agree a new deal),” Whitmarsh told the Formula One website. ”We’ve known Lewis a long time.”

“We have been concentrating on the season and I think there has been more speculation, more concern and more interest about Lewis’s situation in the media than there has been perhaps within the team or within Lewis’s mind.

“We are often asked questions about it but I don’t think it occupies as much time in our minds as it does in column inches.

“I don’t think we should put any timeframe on it. I think it’s something that’s got to be determined for both parties preferably before the end of the season. I don’t think there’s any need to do so against any tight timeframe for that resolution.”

The car

Hamilton’s eighth place at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on July 8 was equal with his worst finish of the season, but Whitmarsh said the team had been working feverishly to improve the car ahead of the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim this weekend.

“Our focus is always to keep developing the car,” he said.  ”We will have quite a lot of quite noticeable updates on the car in Germany.

“So eliminating mistakes, improving the performance of our car and understanding the tires and seeing if we can exploit them better are all on the top of our to-do list.”

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