(Ben Johnston 2014)
The Daily Mail newspaper in the UK are reporting that McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh will be a no show at the presentation of the team's new MP4-29 at the factory in Woking tomorrow.
The paper has reported that Whitmarsh has not been at the McLaren Technology Centre since McLaren Group chairman Ron Dennis was reappointed to the role of CEO at the F1 team fueling speculation that Whitmarsh will make his exit from the F1 team.
McLaren have announced that they have renewed their sponsorship deal with Spanish banking giant Santander for the 2014 season and tellingly when the statement was released by the team there was no word from Whitmarsh and instead it was the teams Marketing managing director, Ekrem Sami who confirmed that the team were pleased to be renewing their deal with the bank.
As for Martin Whitmarsh, the Englishman has been team boss at Woking since 2009 and in five yeard at the help the team have failed to win a championship. There last driver's championship came in 2008 when Lewis Hamilton won the title and their last Constructors championship win was in 1998.
Meanwhile, the Woking based squad also confirmed that Stoffel Vandoorne has been promoted from the teams young driver programme and will be their reserve driver for 2014 replacing Kevin Magnussen who in turn replacing Sergio Perez as Jenson Button's team mate for this season.
The team principal would usually be the one to comment on a new driver appointments however it was the team's sporting director Sam Michael who has said that Stoffel is a very popular member of the McLaren team and is great at providing technical feedback.
It is believed that if Whitmarsh does indeed move on from his position of team principal that Ron Dennis would look to Ross Brawn as Whitmarsh's successor having admitted that the pair held talks at the end of last year. It is certainly a case of watch this space but things should become a lot clearer at midday tomorrow when McLaren launch their new car.
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