Ron Dennis has played down widespread accusations that the McLaren team is struggling heading into the new season. The chairman of the team, who has handed his role as Team Principal to Martin Whitmarsh, has assured onlookers that McLaren will be competitive as the first race approaches.
The team has unveiled a new aerodynamic package in Barcelona this week, with changes to the floor, front wing and rear wing of the car as they attempt to increase downforce and reduce drag. "Whatever performance level McLaren have today, we will be a competitive racing team," Dennis told the BBC. "That means we will be fighting for the championship.
The objective is to go to Australia and be the most competitive car there, not to come out of every single test at the top of the timesheets." Dennis also stressed that overall testing times can often overshadow the individual programmes of each team.
"Testing is about a disciplined approach to making the car go faster and you have to ignore the performance of the other teams. We had a strategy for this year to leave it to the last possible moment to produce our aerodynamic package for the Australian Grand Prix. That in itself gave us some production challenges and we have really only started to run the car in the last days with the Australian aero package."
The silver arrows were also seen using their 2008 rear wing in Jerez last week, as opposed to the taller 2009-spec part: "We ran the 2008 rear wing because it was more relevant in its performance to the wing that we are going to have in Australia. It doesn't mean that you are lost or don't know what you're doing.
Australia will be the first measurement of everyone's performance - we expect our car to go faster with every Grand Prix and we expect to maintain our pace to allow us to win the World Championship."
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