McLaren expects no miracle

The Woking-based team was sorely disappointed after the opening grand prix of the season in Australia, where Kimi Raikkonen retired with a blown engine and David Coulthard could only manage a ninth place finish, scoring one point.

Test driver Pedro de la Rosa racked up the miles at Spanish track Valencia last week, and was quickest on two of the four days there. But McLaren's managing director Martin Whitmarsh is not targeting a comeback win in Sepang.

"Our overall performance in Australia was not at the level we are aiming for this season," he said. "However, the Formula 1 World Championship is about 18 events, not just one and the West McLaren Mercedes team is fully focused on taking the significant performance step that is required to achieve the desired outcome.

"We had various development programmes taking place between Australia and Malaysia. We completed more than 1000km and have received some useful feedback, which we will incorporate and consequently hope to improve our competitiveness."

Driver Kimi Raikkonen, who was touted pre-season as the best hope to take the fight to Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, was left fuming when his car broke down in Melbourne. He too is hoping for an upturn in performance this weekend rather than a sudden burst of competitiveness.

"The Malaysian Grand Prix is of course an event that has good memories for me, as I took my debut F1 victory at last year's race," said the Finn. "Although I would like to repeat that result, the main focus for this weekend is to work on improving our performance from Australia and hopefully to score some points to kick-start our 2004 season."