McLaren: Car is not quick enough

That is the verdict from McLaren, who have revealed for the first time they are struggling for pace following two poor performances in testing recently at Jerez and Barcelona. The team have one final four-day test session to come at Jerez next week, but team principal Martin Whitmarsh is not expecting all the problems to be solved ahead of the trip to Melbourne.

"Initial testing of the car, which first ran with an interim aero package, went in accordance with early developmental expectations," said Whitmarsh. "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."

He added: "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."

But not all the car's ills will be cured in time for Australia, with Whitmarsh saying: "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."