As rumours of Martin Whitmarsh's demise at McLaren become ever more wild, maybe it's time to lay out the facts.

Talk of Martin Whitmarsh being dropped as McLaren team principal first started appearing on Sunday morning, and in the wake of a disappointing British Grand Prix in which tardy pit work saw Jenson Button eliminated with a loose wheel and Lewis Hamilton limited on fuel they gained momentum.

Truth be told, McLaren hasn't had the best of seasons, some of it of its own doing some of it not. That said, despite the naysayers who dismissed the Woking outfit pre-season things are a lot better than they predicted with the team currently second in the Constructors' Championship and, until Sunday, the only team to have won races other than Red Bull. Indeed, McLaren is still the only team of whose both drivers have won this year.

In light of the team's failure to really get to grips with Red Bull, Saturday evening's 'meet the press' event in the McLaren Brand Centre at Silverstone featured what can only be described a mea culpa from the man who, in the opinion of many, is the person with whom the buck stops.

Other than the usual F1 journos, the audience, being Britain's round of the world championship, included a number of chief sports writers, big names usually associated with football, cricket and the like.

Raised on press conferences with the likes of Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson, these guys have never witnessed a team boss raising his hand and essentially saying, 'sorry guys, we got it wrong'. Consequently, some went away convinced that Whitmarsh was offering his head on a plate.

The following day's performance, which admittedly bordered on farce, did little to help the situation. Consequently, with the usual suspects now on board talk of Whitmarsh's fate began to snowball. As a result, today Fleet Street's finest have gone overboard, suggesting that Whitmarsh will be gone by the end of the summer break, that his departure is merely a matter of time.

Without the News of the World to hack into the right mobiles we cannot be 100 percent certain, however, everything Pitpass hears is that this is all smoke and no fire. As for talk of Ron Dennis returning, the fact is he is fully involved with McLaren Automotive.

While Ferrari might seek out heads that need to roll when things go wrong, McLaren is English, this isn't how the game is played.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, news of Martin Whitmarsh's demise has been greatly exaggerated.

Nothing to see here, move along.