McLaren are Improving, Says Haug

McLaren are on the way back towards the top of the Formula One pecking order, after a difficult first half of the season, thanks to improvements on the engine, the head of Mercedes motor sports said on Friday.

"We are continuously developing the engine and making steps," Norbert Haug said. "We are improving. There is still a lot of room for improvement, but I think we've made quite significant steps since the start of the season."

The team won back-to-back Championships with Finland's Mika Hakkinen in 1998 and 1999 but have fallen behind a dominant Ferrari and, more recently, a resurgent Williams.

Britain's David Coulthard, who has succeeded Hakkinen as the team's top driver, struggled with just ten points in the first six races of the season before winning at Monaco and finishing second in Canada in the last two starts.

Coulthard, who had hoped to challenge Schumacher for the Championship this season, has now climbed from a distant fifth to fourth in the overall standings with 26 points, just a point behind Williams' drivers Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya who are tied for second.

"I think we improved in Monaco and Montreal, we did better lap times in Montreal," said Haug, who has felt the wrath of disappointed German fans and a critical media which has been disparaging his cars as the "Silver Duds".

"We were quite competitive in terms of lap times and it was a step," he said. "It wasn't a huge step but certainly a step in the right direction and we're going to continue in that way."

Coulthard was fastest at Friday's practice session before Sunday's European Grand Prix, beating Schumacher into second on a revamped course that has added a tricky 600-metre loop that abruptly ends the start-finish straight.

But both Coulthard and Haug said Friday's triumph meant very little before Saturday's qualifying and Sunday's race.

"Friday times do not mean much," Haug said. "We learned quite a lot and have quite a good baseline. But my judgement is not that we are fighting for pole position."