Dennis confident of no start line glitches

At the Spanish Grand Prix David Coulthard failed to get away and it was Mika Hakkinen's turn in Austria a fortnight ago. Dennis, however, believes the Woking team's launch control system will work without a hitch in Monte Carlo.

"The nature of the problem," said Dennis, "which I will not share with you, does not create any difficulties when we are using it here. We are not in a 'is it going to break situation' either. We have performed well over a thousand starts and we are feeling quite happy. We certainly intend to use launch control here."

In the wake of the 'brain fade' incident in Spain when Dennis blamed Coulthard for not getting off the line when in fact a software glitch was at fault, the McLaren chief conceded that Hakkinen's no-start in Austria was down to driver error.

"Mika's problem in Austria was not a system issue," said Dennis, "it was Mika's mistake, even though there were other mitigating circumstances that affected him, like a stalled car in front of him on the grid. We all make mistakes."

The Finn did not, however, put a foot wrong during Thursday's free practice sessions and finished the day at the top of the time sheets as the only man to break into the 1m19s bracket. Coulthard, meanwhile, finished more than a second behind in sixth place.