Coulthard Unsure McLaren will Fight at the Top

David Coulthard refused to promise fans that his McLaren-Mercedes will become front runners this season after they suffered a dismal performance in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

Scot Coulthard finished in eighth position after starting from 13th place on the grid while his Finnish teammate Kimi Raikkonen was out of the race with engine failure before he had even completed ten laps of the Albert Park circuit.

McLaren were expected to be challenging for victories and Raikkonen was tipped to be a strong contender for the title this year ­ but on Sunday's display Coulthard admitted those targets seem to be a long way off.

"It was a disappointing weekend overall," said Coulthard. "We have had the first reality check to our pace and performance and it wasn't good. But rather than dwelling on this we have to improve. We have a test next week that will bring us some development aerodynamics parts for Malaysia.

"We are certainly going to improve (this year) but I can't promise the McLaren fans that we will improve sufficiently to get to the front.

"I made a reasonable start and then obviously the reality of pace was evident when I was behind Sato. He wasn't really holding me up a great deal, a half second or so, and the others were going away at a very fast rate.

"Quite clearly our performance isn't there and getting a point or two is small consolation for the fact we have quite a mountain to climb. We have been mid-grid. We need to improve in every area and that's what we're gonna do.

"If we knew exactly what was the one problem you would be working flat out on that but I think generally we're not making the most of the tyres on one lap, the car's difficult to position, and our race pace isn't good enough. We can't hide from it. You saw our performance today. We can't deny that but we will work hard and make improvments."

Ferrari, who use Bridgestone tyres, shocked their Michelin-shod rivals McLaren, Williams and Renault with a race pace that was consistently one second quicker. They finished first and second, half a minute ahead of the field.

But while the performance came as a surprise to some, Coulthard had been expecting it after seeing their performance in the final pre-season test at Imola ­ and he does not expect it to last forever.

"It was pretty impressive stuff from Ferrari but I was already forewarned over their pace," said Coulthard. "They won't keep that at every race but they certainly opened their season with a bang."