Newey doubts McLaren title hopes

McLaren technical director Adrian Newey says his team faces an uphill task in next year's championship after deciding to use an updated version of this year's in the first three races of 2003

Oct 3, 2002, 4:59 PM

Newey feels the team's long-term competitiveness will be improved by waiting for the MP4-18 to be proven, rather than risk it running unreliably at the start of the year.

"It will not be ready in time for the start of the season - or not soon enough to be sure we have had enough time to be happy with reliability," Newey told BBC Sport Online.

"So we have decided to take advantage of that when it comes to making decisions about the design of the new car.

"What this says is that we want to go about winning individual races. It means it will be extremely difficult to win the championship, but let's try to get some points early in the season and then be absolutely competitive as soon as we can."

McLaren is already testing the B-spec version of the MP4-17 that drivers David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen will race at the start of next year.