Coulthard 'extracted the maximum'

Both Coulthard and his McLaren-Mercedes team-mate Kimi Raikkonen could not live with the pace of Ferrari and Williams at Imola. The Scot struggled with the handling of his car and lost a place to Jenson Button's Renault in the pitstops. He only took a point from the race when the team withdrew Raikkonen from fifth place because of a broken exhaust.

"I really lacked grip throughout the race," said Coulthard. "At the start I had a lot of understeer which took some time to clear and then the rear began to slide. We dropped some wing for the race to increase speed, but it didn't really help. I extracted the maximum I could from the car but we just couldn't keep up."

McLaren boss Ron Dennis said: "Our lack of pace is a direct reflection of those elements of the package which are not where they need to be. Whilst Kimi's exhaust failure triggered a prudent decision to stop the car, the reality is that we have known since Malaysia that it's going to take time to close the gap to the front of the grid."

McLaren's problem is said to be a lack of horsepower from the Mercedes engine. The manufacturer's motorsport boss Norbert Haug said: "The weekend's results show our current performance level. We are too slow and everybody in the team knows that we have to improve and work even harder."