Hakkinen: 'My title chances look pretty sad'

The Finn's McLaren-Mercedes suffered a terminal clutch problem almost within sight of the chequered flag, allowing Michael Schumacher's vibration-hampered Ferrari to inherit an unexpected victory.

With five races down and 12 still to run, Hakkinen still has just four points, compared to the 36 of Schumacher and the 28 of his McLaren team mate David Coulthard.

"It's started looking pretty sad at the moment," said Hakkinen. "I'm very, very disappointed obviously. In one sense I'm not so sad, just disappointed. This was not what we expected to happen and we were confident that the car was going to be fine."

McLaren technical director Adrian Newey says the exact reason for the clutch failure may never be known.

"It was a clutch problem," he said. "He had clutch slip right at the end, but exactly why, we don't know at the moment. And it may be that we never will, because it got so hot it probably destroyed the evidence."

Newey has also re-affirmed McLaren boss Ron Dennis's submission that David Coulthard was not to blame for the stall that forced him to start the first race since the legal re-introduction of traction control from the back of the grid.

"David did something slightly differently," he said. "But I have to say that the system probably should have coped with it, so there's no point in allocating blame. It's a problem associated with the change of regulations."