Updated McLaren Could Test in Two Weeks

McLaren-Mercedes hope to start testing a revised car within the next two weeks in a bid to halt their disastrous season, technical director Adrian Newey said on Thursday.

Drivers David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen have picked up just five points this season as Ferrari's World Champion Michael Schumacher has built up a perfect record of five victories from five races.

McLaren, who have been overtaken by both Renault and BAR-Honda and are now fifth in the World Championship, hope the 'b-spec' machine currently being built will put them back in contention at the front end of the grid.

"We're building the car at the moment and we expect it will be out somewhere between two weeks and four weeks," said Newey. "In terms of lap time benefit, the simulation says it should be significant.

"It's an updated car so virtually all the mechanical parts are the same but from the bodywork perspective it's heavily updated and that involves some changes to the monocoque shape. When we're running the updated car we will be splitting our efforts between testing that car and trying to get it to race worthiness as soon as possible (and testing the current car). But that's fairly well planned out."

Engine partners Mercedes-Benz had been largely blamed for the poor start to the season after power unit failures and a lack of power left Coulthard and Raikkonen down the grid. But Newey believes restructuring will prove decisive and added: "Yes, we have had a few engine embarrassments lately but I think most of these things, when you have problems, tend to go back to the structure and management of the company.

"The problems have been recognised, there have been some large changes made, and I think they are very good changes and I am very confident for the future. But these things do take time. I would hope we will see steady improvements on the engine side through the balance of this year with the target of getting towards the benchmark, probably not necessarily next year, but certainly by the 2006 season."