Whitmarsh said: “We’ve looked at what we are doing and have made some changes
to the team and the process and we’ll see them on Sunday in Barcelona – or
you may see them on the earlier days if you are interested enough to watch
pit-stop practice.
“There’s enormous pressure on the guys. At a team like McLaren you are
targeting a sub three-second stop.
“It’s a huge physical challenge. If you’ve held a wheel gun it’s really heavy
and it’s not an easy task.
“It’s being done on some very hot components with the eyes of hundreds of
millions bearing down on your back.
“So I am always in awe of the level of the volunteers we have, but we have
made some changes as you might expect following the last race.
“I wondered whether we’d have volunteers for some of the more critical
elements, but I was astounded by how many guys in the team wanted to put
themselves in that very challenging position.
“It reflects well on the spirit of the team. There’s since been a reasonable
amount of practice and we’ll see at the weekend. I believe we’ll have good
stops.”
The two errors in Bahrain resulted in Hamilton finishing eighth and losing his
lead of the championship to Red Bull’s reigning champion Sebastian Vettel,
who holds a four-point advantage.
With four different winners of the four races to date, Hamilton is naturally
itching to make it five in five, a feat achieved just three times in F1
history.
Last season’s runner-up to Vettel said: “Our performance at Barcelona during
winter testing looked promising.
“But the form of the season is still very hard to read, so it’s difficult to
predict who’ll be at the front this weekend.
“Nonetheless, we had a great race there last year. I pushed Sebastian all the
way to the finish.
“I think we have a comparatively stronger car this year, so I hope we can have
another strong race.”