McLaren MP4-16 launch: DC puts the miles on

The car is officially unveiled in Spain today (Wednesday), but the team took advantage of an exclusive track booking to put some miles on it well away from public gaze.

Ron Dennis made the surprise announcement of the car's early debut at a team press and VIP dinner in Valencia on Tuesday evening.

"We've done 500kms absolutely without problems, and the car was reasonably competitive," he told Autosport.com. "We hope tomorrow it won't stop, because it hasn't stopped so far! We've put a huge effort into this year's car, and everybody's tried hard. The car's quite pretty. As you know there are a lot of regulation changes which are reflected in the car."

David Coulthard is delighted with the way things have gone so far.

"We did 50 laps on the first day, and not a problem," he said, "which means it will break down for sure today! We did 70 laps today [Tuesday]. No bullshit, it's the best first run-out of a car that I've had at McLaren. Not one single problem. You appreciate the sort of problems that you can get when you have new cars, but we've had nothing. The engine hasn't blown up, which as you've seen in testing is something that's happened."

The Scot says that the 2001-spec car is not as difficult to drive as some of his colleagues have suggested.

"We ran the downforce in the winter. When we did Jerez, Valencia and Barcelona, the only track we weren't quick on really was Barcelona, but [the others] were running a load of downforce.

"But at Valencia and Jerez we were setting the quickest times. We were thinking we've got half the downforce on the car, or whatever the figure is. So when we got the new car on the track it's actually got more downforce than we thought. It feels pretty good, because [the interim car] felt relatively poor in comparison to the whole season during the winter testing.

"I know Barrichello's been saying that the cars are very difficult to drive with this new configuration with the high wing," he added. "I did how ever many thousands kilometres like that, and in Turn 1 at Valencia, a very fast left-hander, it understeered like a b*****d all during December. Now you flick a couple of gears, nail it, turn in, and do it. If it's pushing a little bit, you crank some wing into it, no problem.

"There's still some development to do, it still feels a bit numb in some areas, but the basic pace is there. I come round and see the lap time and think, if that's the time we're doing just now, then I think we're in good shape. It feels the business, I tell you."