New McLaren Looks Like a Winner, Says Whitmarsh

Struggling McLaren say their new Formula One car, pencilled in for a race debut in France next month, looks like a winner.

"The car is good enough to get us close to the top," Britain's Motorsport News weekly quoted McLaren's Formula One CEO Martin Whitmarsh as saying on Wednesday. "We want to win a race or two before the end of this season and we believe that we have a programme that will now enable us to do that."

McLaren gave the updated MP4-19B its track debut at Silverstone last week with Finland's Kimi Raikkonen sounding enthusiastic afterwards.

The Mercedes-powered team desperately need results, languishing sixth in the Constructors' Championship with just five points from seven races - their worst start to a season since Ron Dennis took over in 1981.

But McLaren will still not be taking the car to this weekend's race in Canada or the ninth round of the season at Indianapolis the following Sunday despite internal pressure.

"Kimi and Ron were sufficiently confident and buoyant about the car that I came under pressure to take it to Canada," said Whitmarsh.

"You wouldn't normally do that unless you had a fair degree of enthusiasm and expectation that it was a reasonable step forward," he added. "We'd love to take it to Canada but that would be irresponsible...the disciplined approach is to carry on with our test programme.

"It still hasn't passed all of the necessary checks. The last week has increased our confidence and, while there's still no firm decision, I think France is a sensible and realistic target."

The French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours is on July 4.