As Lewis Hamilton approaches the end of his six-year tenu🤡re at McLaren, team boss Martin Whitmarsh has conceded that the partnership should have yielded more championship success t꧟han it ultimately achieved.

Hamilton won the world championship in 2008 but the follow-up second title has been co🍸nspicuous by its absence. Added to that, the team hasn't won the🔯 constructor's championship since the turn of the millennium.

"All of us are at fault for that," Whitmarsh told the Daily Mail newspaper 🧸on Friday in Abu Dha✅bi. "We've still got an extraordinary record and have had some fantastic races, but between us, with Lewis and the team, we could have done a better job together than we did."

Despite clearly assigning the responsibility equally between everyone involved, Whitmarsh's comments had been taken as being particularly critical of Hamilton - and on Saturday he🐼 was keen to tell reporters that no such slight was intended.

"I know it's been cast this way this morning in the newspapers but what I said is, yes, he should have won more championships and we could have done a better job as a team," he explained to Sky Sports News in the Yas M🦩arina paddock in Abu Dhabi. "We could have🍎 been more reliable, we could all do [more than we did.]

"Lewis is part of this team so we don't point fingers at anyone," insisted Whitmarsh. "I was very clear in what I🍬 said about taking that responsibility but clearly it's more entertaining in the newspapers to cast it as I was suggesting Lewis hasn't done a good enough job.

"He's done a great job," h𒉰e said. "We haven't always done as good a job as we'd like to, but we both know rather ruefully we should have had one or two other world champi🐻onships in his time."

Whitmarsh speculated that th༒e team was possibly paying the price for playing it too safe in recent seasons.

"Arguably we have been too conservative and risk-averse in regulation interpretation," Whitmarsh told The Guardian. "Given our brand and our position, I think we are more risk-avers﷽e.

"There are things that have happened which, had our engineers come to me and said we're going to do this, I'd have said forget it," he admitted. "✤I'd rather campaign for clearer, less ambiguous regulations."

Whitmarsh also acknowledged that 🧸the team's decision to sign Sauber's Sergio Perez as a replacement for Hamilton in 2013 is a definite leap into the unknown.

"He's got something but we don't know whether that something is enough to be🍒 groomed into a world champion," Whitmarsh conceded. "I think it might be but it is a🤪n interesting challenge."

Pointing to the team's record of winning mo🦹re than a quarter of the races in which it had raced since 1966, Whitmarsh pointed out the heavy burden of expectatio💎n that Perez would face as soon as he steps into the cockpit of the McLaren.

"That's an added pressure to being a McLaren driver," said Whitmarsh.𒀰 "[Sergio] might think he understands it, but𝔉 he doesn't.'

Whitmarsh admitted earlier this week that the Woking-based team had ma𒈔de it too easy for their rivals to get away from them during the 2012 season - particularly Red Bull, who are now on seemingly unstoppable charge to the title.

"They've a fast car, a driver who is consistent and the team has been doing🌌 a good job," Whitmarsh was quoted by the Daily Telegraph at the start of the week. "Butꦡ we have made it all too easy for him."

Recalling the fierce first-lap battle between drivers Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton - which ultimately ended with Ferrari's Fernando Alons𒉰o ahead of both - Whitmarsh agreed that this had been a lost opportunity to really take the battle to the Red Bulls.

"♛That was probably the dream ticket for [Red Bull]," he said. "But they haᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚve done a great job," he added.