McLaren halts new suspension work

The team's engineering director Paddy Lowe told a Vodafone McLaren phone-in that McLaren had been late to the table in coming up with a system that some other teams are suspected of having already implemented on their cars this year.

However, he confirmed that no further work would be carried out on the system and that last week's ruling does not affect the MP4-25s raced by world champion Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton.

"We were aware over the last few months of a different approach to it [the suspension system]; an approach which historically we hadn't thought to be the typical interpretation [of the regulations], and we were reacting to that," Lowe said.

"Now that the FIA has taken a fresh view of it and drawn a different line - and one we think is nearer the historical line - we are reacting to that too, so we've had to change some of the things we're doing.

"Basically, we had a system we were working on, and we've now suspended that."

He denied that any self-levelling suspension system had been used on this year's McLaren and said that the only changes that will be made to the car for this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix are a number of aerodynamic improvements.

Lowe said that he did not know if any other team had run a ride height control system, which is in breach of article 34.5 of the FIA international sporting code, this year.

"We absolutely don't know who has been doing what and whether anyone has been racing anything in the nature of ride height control systems," he added.

"We got the feeling that others were further advanced in development. I haven't got a clue as to whether anyone else has a system on their cars though."