Newey explains new McLaren problems

"I think we probably underestimated the difficulties of manufacturing a new car at the same time as racing the existing one," Newey admitted, "plus there's some new technologies and manufacturing techniques in the new car which we haven't done before. That's been a learning curve really, in production and manufacturing terms rather than actual design."

On the subject of the car's reliability problems that restricted it to just 27 laps at Paul Ricard last week, Newey brushed them aside as teething trouble.

"We had a hydraulic problem which kept the running right down until we understood that," Newey added. "It was actually a silly little problem which was easily sorted, so it was frustrating that we were right off the mark on that one. Once we got running on the third day, we were able to start putting a few more laps in, but by then the circuit was reconfigured for a Montreal simulation and, of course, with it being a new car we didn't have the wing range."

He added: "So, it's really difficult to say very much about the performance of the car at the moment. We're at Barcelona next week and hopefully we can get some proper running done then."