McLaren Baffled by Lack of Pace

McLaren boss Ron Dennis said his team were unable to find an explanation for their poor performance in Saturday's qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

On a track where the Woking-based team were expected to fight for the top positions, Scot David Coulthard and Finn Kimi Raikkonen could only set the 10th and 11th quickest times respectively, both nearly two seconds off the pace set by pole-man Rubens Barrichello in the Ferrari.

Dennis, whose technical director Adrian Newey had claimed earlier this year that Monaco and the Hungaroring would be the two places where McLaren would have a chance of winning, said the team will work hard to try to rectify the situation in tomorrow's race.

"Our lack of performance in light of the results we achieved in Monaco and Magny-Cours, which are circuits with similar characteristics, is something which we at this stage don't fully understand," said Dennis. "No specific part of the package is responsible, but we haven't even managed to get the best out of what we have.

"Obviously the engineers will work hard prior to the race and I'm sure our performance will improve, but it's going to need a very good strategy to get a podium finish when one takes into consideration how difficult it is to overtake at the Hungaroring."