McLaren pledges to resolve reliability problems for 2013

With Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button having suffered reliability issues at the last four events, McLaren is left with only a slim chance of now beating favourite Red Bull to the crown.

The team knows that it has thrown away good opportunities this year through operational glitches rather than a lack of speed from its car, and admits matters have to be improved over the rest of this year so they are sorted for 2013.

McLaren sporting director Sam Michael said: "We've not had a good run reliability wise. We had a fuel system problem in Monza, a gearbox failure in Singapore, then suspension in Suzuka and then again in Korea. All of them are unrelated in terms of individual items.

"The things that happened in all those failures are single point failures. They are not things that are endemic to the system; they are not things that are in built or systematic.

"They are all single point failures, so going to this weekend none of those things should fail. If something else happens this weekend it would definitely be unrelated to any of those.

"Reliability is so important now and our target is to be 100 per cent reliable, and that goes for on-board car failures and operational reliability as well - such as things that happen on circuit, with pitstops or things that are non-related to the physical running of the car.

"It is something that we need to really get on top of and nail for these remaining four races, and for next year as well. Everyone internally is aware of how costly it has been this season."

Michael says, however, that it is too soon to accuse McLaren of having had a weaker year for reliability than its rivals.

"Our performance has been quite strong at some circuits and we have been up and down in performance, but so have Red Bull, while Ferrari have probably been flatter.

"If you take our first four races where they were not competitive, they have been quite stable.

"Those guys have had DNFs as well, but I think it is probably a bit subjective until we get to the end of the year, and say just how badly it hurt us.

"It is one of those things that we need to get on top of and it normally comes down to that famous word: process. That is what we are in the middle of doing.

"To win world championships, we know we have to get that sorted. That is all pretty clear internally."