McLaren say more progress needed

A range of aerodynamic and suspension developments over recent weeks have helped Raikkonen challenge at the front in the last two races, but McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh has called for even more effort to make their MP4-21 better.

"I think in the last few weeks we have made some progress and talking to the drivers, they are more comfortable with the race car, so that is a positive step," he said after Raikkonen took third and Juan Pablo Montoya sixth at Silverstone.

"You are talking to me in the aftermath of sorely losing a second place though, so the feeling right now is we haven't improved enough and clearly we don't have the pace that we need in the car.

"We have improved the car but we have got to carry on working on it. If you look at where we were in Spain we were a long way back, so we have made some steps there."

Although Raikkonen's chances of fighting with Fernando Alonso for victory were compromised by the need to conserve his engine, and most probably by the team's choice of harder compound tyre, Whitmarsh believes that a small airbox fire at his second stop may have been the difference between finish second and third.

"There was a little problem," he said. "We had a small airbox fire that cost us a little bit of time. Inevitably in an F1 engine, it is not a rare thing but it is not the sort of thing you want.

"There is a lot of fuel around near the airbox, which can catch alight, and the consequence is that it consumes the oxygen that the engine is about to get. So the engine gives a cough and a splutter and can stall, so it made us a bit slow away.

"Michael was nailing some good laps and we didn't. Inevitably we will go and do the analysis of the airbox fire and see how much we lost and if we had not had it would we have come out in front.

"But Michael nailed some good laps at that point. We should have been able to push a little bit harder and create the comfort we needed to come out in front."