McLaren in no rush to test Hamilton

The GP2 points leader, who ended his strongest weekend of the season at Silverstone this morning with a second race win, is expected to move to Formula One next season - a move that looks more and more likely as he strengthens his GP2 title campaign.

But McLaren chief Ron Dennis said his protege will not get a Formula One test before the season ends, as the team would not spend their limited in-season testing days on Hamilton's evaluation.

"He has a break now - his next race is Magny-Cours, which is a good month away," Dennis said in Silverstone. "So maybe we will give him some mileage in a simulator in preparation for a test towards the end of the year, that is what is likely to happen.

"We don't want to work outside the testing agreement (which limits the number of testing days during the season), so we don't want to spend time evaluating any driver at the moment. It is certainly not the thing to do mid-season and not productive to our car development programme at the moment."

Dennis revealed his main dilemma is not whether Hamilton should move to Formula One or not, but rather how best to ensure he is immediately successful in his debut F1 season.

Dennis explained: "Wherever he ends up next year - and there is every indication that it should be an F1 car - you need to accept that history shows no driver comes into F1 and has a level of success that would make him a championship contender. There will be one, two, three years of coming to grips with F1.

"So what we will try to do is prepare him best for that first year, and hopefully we will be able to reflect in a couple of years that we have done everything to put him in the best possible position, [to ensure he is] more competitive in his first F1 season than any other driver that has come to it.

"But it is now somewhat premature to say how that will unfold or with which team. The important thing is to keep his feet on the ground and his father's feet on the ground, and just concentrate on getting the job done."

McLaren have signed world champion Fernando Alonso for 2007 but it remains unknown who will partner the Spaniard. With the team openly admitting that Kimi Raikkonen is their first choice, and with Juan Pablo Montoya not ruled out either, the Woking-based outfit are not short for choice.

But Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has called on the team to use their fresh young talent and ensure Hamilton is racing in Formula One next season, as well as test driver Gary Paffett, who dominated DTM last year.

"I don't want to see good talent stifled, so I hope we see these young guys on the grid next season," Ecclestone told the Sunday Express.

"McLaren have two drivers who seem to be very good, very able, who have been winning all their series. They are guys who seem to have the personality and the pace to do the job...We need fresh blood, and in Paffett and Hamilton we see guys who need to be on the grid

"Ron has done a good job in nurturing the talent, but I hope he is not going to just keep them out of sight. I hope he finds room for one of them in his car next year alongside Fernando Alonso. It would be an exciting young combination, a great image for the team.

"The other guy could then be loaned or sold to another team, and I am sure there would be plenty of takers for these young guys."