Newey blames lack of testing for McLaren form

Newey said the Woking-based squad had not had a single proper test of the new cars since the season started six weeks ago - and they were therefore forced to experiment at races.

While Ferrari freighted one of its cars back to Europe after the opening round in Australia, the McLaren-Mercedes machines were in transit from Melbourne to Sepang in Malaysia and then straight on to Sao Paulo, Brazil, for the third race.

Ferrari won the first two races, but McLaren came back with a victory for David Coulthard in Brazil two weeks ago.

"We have struggled a little bit with the car this year," said Newey ahead of Sunday's fourth round, the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola. "We haven't quite got on top of the new regulations fully, so while the car worked well in Brazil, we haven't quite got the consistency out of it we would like."

Newey blames many of the team's problems on the lack of time McLaren has managed to spend on the test track, through no fault of its own.

"The biggest problem is time," he said. "With races every two weeks, you are on a pretty tight schedule. We haven't really had a decent single test yet since the start of the year.

"Silverstone last week was our first test since the season started and that wasn't a good test, so in terms of set-up we are having to experiment at the races, which isn't ideal.

"We have very wet conditions which is fine if you want to do wet testing, but we didn't. It wasn't ideal, but it is one of those problems British teams have to face.

"It would be nice to have our own test track in a warm environment like Ferrari, but obviously there are pros and cons."