LONDON (Reuters) – McLaren are on the mend after throwing everything they have into making their troubled car go faster and keeping Lewis Hamilton’s title defence alive, according to team boss Martin Whitmarsh.

Hamilton’s fighting fourth place in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix was proof that the policy is starting to pay off after a difficult start to the Formula One season.

“We’ve made good progress, a lot of progress, and if we can continue that progress then we’re going to be in a strong position,” Whitmarsh, who took over from Ron Dennis in March, told reporters.

“We weren’t one of those teams, within two races, who was saying the championship was over.

“As a race team we have thrown everything we can at it, with 12 performance modifications on the car from last weekend and that takes a huge amount of effort,” he added.

Hamilton, excluded from the season-opening Australian Grand Prix results for deliberately misleading stewards, has taken just nine points from the first four races while compatriot Jenson Button has 31 after three wins.

However Button warned after the race that McLaren were looking stronger and were likely to make even bigger strides forward now that the championship is back in Europe and new developments are coming on stream.

Whitmarsh said his team’s morale was strong, despite recent crises.

“You can sense the people within the team feel we’re heading in the right direction,” he said.

“The benefit of a full-on assault gives momentum to the drivers, engineers, everyone within the team to think ‘Right, we can catch these guys up, overhaul them and win races this year.

“We have to do that first and when we do that, we’ll see where we are in the championship and whether it’s feasible.”

While McLaren have picked up speed on the track, events elsewhere could have a major impact on their season with the governing body meeting in Paris on Wednesday to decide whether to impose strict sanctions on the team for what happened in Melbourne.

The International Automobile Federation’s world motor sports council could fine, deduct points or even suspend McLaren from the championship.

McLaren were fined $100 million and stripped of all their constructors’ points in 2007 for a spying controversy concerning secret Ferrari information in their possession.