Budapest: Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton and McLaren just want to keep on winning now that they have reminded themselves what the podium looks like.
"It was absolutely important to this team that we won some races this year," said team principal Martin Whitmarsh after Hamilton gave McLaren their first success of the season in Hungary on Sunday.
"We've done one and we hope we can do some more now."
Kimi Raikkonen, the only Ferrari driver in the race after Brazilian Felipe Massa was seriously injured in qualifying when he was hit on the head by flying debris, cemented the return of last year's pecking order with a strong second for the Italian team's best result of the season.
"Lewis is back and Ferrari are back," said Red Bull's Australian Mark Webber, third on Sunday and now second overall and 18.5 points behind Brawn GP's championship leader Jenson Button.
"We love racing these guys and fighting hard against them. We knew they would come back."
With Red Bull and Brawn fighting for both titles and likely to be more intent on banking points than going for outright victory, McLaren were upbeat about their chances in the remaining seven races.
They could also play a big role in deciding the championship.
"Clearly the championship fight is an exciting one, hopefully we can play a part in that and take some victories along the way while they are concentrating on trying to score points to protect championship leads or otherwise," said Whitmarsh.
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner agreed the battle ahead would only get tougher: "More players are coming into the game now with the step that McLaren have made," he said.
"I think Renault have also made a step and Williams, in fairness their car also looked very promising. So for us the best thing is to have the most cars between us and Brawn that we possibly can."
The first win this year by a team other than Brawn or Red Bull was also a first for a car equipped with the KERS kinetic energy recovery systems that offers the driver a boost of power at the push of a button.
McLaren and Ferrari were the only teams using the controversial systems in Hungary and they paid off.
"KERS is going to play a bit of a role in the closing part of the championship but thankfully we capitalised in the early part of the championship when these guys were struggling," said Webber.
Button, who could finish only seventh after winning six of the first seven races of the season, predicted Hungary would not be the only win for a KERS car.
"The big KERS circuits will be Spa and Monza," he warned, referring to the Belgian Grand Prix in late August and the Italian Grand Prix in mid-September. "They are just going to destroy us on those two circuits."
The win was also a first for Whitmarsh as principal and it was particularly sweet, coming only a few months after McLaren were embroiled in a furore over lying to race stewards in Australia.
"I, the team, Lewis and everyone needed a win but no-one needed this one more than me. So it was great," he said.
Bureau Report
First Published: Monday, July 27, 2009, 22:33