Prost: Title race more open than it looks

Although Ferrari's front-row lock out in the Monaco Grand Prix suggested that the team had eradicated their weakness on tight tracks, Lewis Hamilton's victory showed that McLaren can be a match for their rivals after losing out in the previous four races.

And Prost believes that McLaren will show improved strength from now on after getting used to working with a new driver pairing this year - a factor the Frenchman thinks handed Ferrari an early season advantage.

"Ferrari have a much better car for Monaco, compared to last year," said Prost, looking back on last weekend's event.

"And even though they won the first race, I don't think McLaren were that good in the first part of the season. Now they are a lot better, so it's very close between them.

"My opinion is that when you change the drivers, you have a different situation to what Ferrari have. The continuity is important.

"Lewis is now in (Fernando) Alonso's situation, and (Heikki) Kovalainen is the young driver - who nobody thought had the potential to be a number one driver. He's much better than people thought. I don't think McLaren are at the maximum, and I think the true gap is very marginal."

He added: "You have four drivers who can win races; with no team orders...it's very good. It's an open championship - more open than perhaps we think."

Despite his feelings that McLaren have taken time to settle down to working with a new driver, Prost is adamant that the team's development progress is not being hurt by having two young men on board.

"Everybody says that they miss a driver with experience. I'm not convinced by that. The way they work in modern teams, the drivers change very little on the cars."

Prost's views about the closeness of the championship have been echoed by McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh, who still thinks the team that can develop their car the best will triumph.

"It looks as though the title will probably be a race between Ferrari and ourselves, although I still wouldn't discount BMW and others," he said. "We'll just carry on trying to improve the car between now and the end of the year.

"If we can progress at a better rate than Ferrari we'll win the championship, and vice versa. Aside from the events every fortnight there's a race between races to develop the car."