2012 Sebring Champion: 'Tyres could ruin 2013 season'.

Source: Telegraph

Mclaren team principal, Martin Whitmarsh insists the team will find a balance between risk-taking and reliability for the 2013 season.

The Woking-based team produced arguably the quickest car over the course of the 2012 season but poor decision making as well as an awful reliability record saw them drop to third in the Manufacturers' Championship.

"You have to constantly develop the car over the course of the season - and we've given ourselves a platform to do that."

More worryingly, mechanical failure put a halt to former driver, Lewis Hamiltons' title bid and may have played a role in his decision to leave for Mercedes.

Whitmarsh said: "We've taken some risks in changing the car from last year."

"We finished 2012 with the quickest car and it would have been very easy to continue to develop that car and make it quicker still."

Mclaren will be looking to stop Sebastian Vettel and his RedBull team winning their forth consecutive title, in order to do so, drivers' Jenson Button and Sergio Perez will have to hit the ground running.

The 8-time Constructor Champions' also aim to fix some early bugs to the car spotted in pre-season testing, Whitmarsh said: "You can never be as confident as you'd like to be with a new car," he said. "If it's stable and reliable, typically you want to push it further, make it quicker, lighter and more aerodynamic."

"We've been working hard with Mercedes-Benz on some of the issues we saw last year, and we've been working internally as well.

"We are constantly vigilant but we must not become so obsessed by the pursuit of reliability that we don't change the car to improve it."

Mclaren will be hoping to provide both of their drivers with a competitive car and this week, news that Jenson Button is willing to stay with the team until he retires has boosted team morale.

The Mclaren team principal added: "The beauty is that there are quite big areas of this year's regulations which are completely not applicable going forward so I would hope we will get him involved in some of those challenges."