It is not that Mercedes-powered MP4-16 car was not quick. It was. It just was not quick often enough. David Coulthard took two superb victories in the first half of the year, but the McLaren was too often struggling to hang on to the coat tails of its red rival.

It is difficult to know for sure where the problem lay.

The drivers complained that the MP4-16 had an inherent understeer problem, and technical director Adrian Newey admitted that the car has complicated inherent problems that were never entirely solved.

On top of that, McLaren found it difficult to find the sweet spot on set-up - although when they did, the car was the quickest thing on the track.

There is a feeling that at least as much of a problem might be that Mercedes made no progress over the winter with the engine - and very little since.

This was not entirely their fault. Rule changes, instigated by Ferrari, reduced the number of exotic materials allowed in engines, and Mercedes relied quite heavily on one of these, aluminium beryllium, for its excellence.

Mercedes therefore had to play catch up while others, particularly BMW, made major strides in performance.

On top of that, Mika Hakkinen, usually McLaren's most potent weapon, was not himself - and why that was became clear when he announced a sabbatical that will probably turn out to be retirement.

Hakkinen was still stunning on his day, it was just that his day came very rarely - three times in fact. Two of those times, he won, and the other time he retired from the lead on the last lap.

As if that was not enough, the embarrassing saga of Newey's eventually abortive move to Jaguar unsettled McLaren just when they needed to be knuckling down to solving the problems.