McLaren have revealed they are struggling to get their cars in peak condition for the season start.
Bosses reveal new car not yet quick enough
McLaren have revealed they are struggling to get their cars in peak condition in time for the start of the new Formula One season.
The team's new car has put in two poor performances in testing recently at Jerez and Barcelona.
There are just two weeks until the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and team principal Martin Whitmarsh has admitted Lewis Hamilton could begin his World Championship defence with a car that "isn't fast enough".
McLaren have one final four-day test session at Jerez next week but the problems are not expected to be resolved in time for the trip to Melbourne.
Although Hamilton may therefore have to play catch-up this season, Whitmarsh is confident it will not hinder his title chances.
"Initial testing of the car, which first ran with an interim aero package, went in accordance with early developmental expectations," he said.
Performance shortfall
"This week the car ran in Barcelona with an updated aero package, as we had always planned it would, and a performance shortfall has been identified that we are now working hard to resolve.
"At the moment the car isn't fast enough, and certainly not by our team's extremely high standards.
"But Lewis is the world champion, and he became world champion in one of our cars.
"So anything less than success at that level is naturally regarded as unsatisfactory by us, by our partners, by the media and by the fans.
"But the problems are fixable. Many times in Formula One history have successful teams started off with a car that was not working as well as they had hoped it would.
"And many times have those successful teams engineered their way back to the front of the grid in impressively short order.
"That is what we aim to do. In fact, that is what we are already doing."
McLaren's efforts to get the car delivering its full potential will be restricted by a ban on in-season testing for this year, but Whitmarsh believes the Woking-based team will make further progress before the season start.
"Next week we will be testing at Jerez, which many of our rivals will not be," he added.
"We aim to continue to develop the car, and the result should be measurable on the stopwatch.
Fightback
"Will the car be as quick as we want it to be by March 29? Perhaps not.
"Will it be quicker than it has been this week at the Barcelona test? Yes.
"Will it improve as we develop its aero and thereby address its problems in the coming weeks and months? Most certainly."
Although McLaren may not start as competitively as they would like, Mercedes-Benz motorsport boss Norbert Haug has warned they will come back firing.
"There is a lack of downforce and we are working hard to solve this problem and improve," he explained.
"However, it might take us a few races to significantly improve. The car feels good - that is what our drivers say - but we are currently definitely not fast enough, not competitive enough to aim for victories.
"But we've fixed problems together in the past and we will succeed in doing it again. Expect us to fight back even if it takes some time."
