Ron Dennis, the team principal of McLaren Mercedes, has just been through the worst 12 months of a long career in motor racing and in recent weeks has come close to retiring. Having decided to carry on, he was on hand yesterday to watch the driver he signed as a 13-year-old win his fifth grand prix and it could not have come at a better time for Dennis.

For him, this was the best evidence yet that his team have shown character in adversity. “In difficult circumstances, teams either separate or come closer together, it's as simple as that,” he said. “We have come closer together and you just feel that that commitment is rewarded if the results come right.”

Wearing the bright orange shirt that McLaren give to all their team members when they win a race, Dennis spoke of the equally bright future he hopes McLaren are heading for with their new driver pairing of Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen. “We are not going to spend any time on the past and certainly not at any grand prix,” Dennis said. “You have to learn from everything you experience in life and we are forward-looking. Thinking about the past is a waste of energy.”

As much as Dennis was impressed with Hamilton, he was also happy with Kovalainen's debut for McLaren and believes that the Finn has much more quality to come. “He is nowhere near where he's going to be in five or six races,” Dennis said. “He is going to get better and better, as will Lewis.”

The race and qualifying in Melbourne appeared to suggest that McLaren are well-placed in what promises to be another season-long battle with Ferrari. But Dennis is not getting carried away with a result in Australia that in the past has proved atypical of the season as a whole. “It's too early to say,” he said. “They had to compromise their race with things that happened on Saturday - we didn't see their true pace. I'm under no illusions that they are a very competitive team and they are going to be very strong in all the remaining races and we've got to be stronger than them.”

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