McLaren chief angry at team

Dennis has not been overly impressed with his team

By BBC Sport Online's Andrew Benson in Monaco

McLaren boss Ron Dennis has admitted that his team is to blame for the problems that have left one of his drivers stranded on the grid for three consecutive Grands Prix.

David Coulthard's car stalled on pole position at the start of the warm-up lap for the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday, costing him a potential race win.

Coulthard was forced to battle back to fifth place, while his title rival Michael Schumacher won the race and extended his championship lead to 12 points.

It's our screw up

  McLaren boss Ron Dennis

Dennis said that Coulthard's problem was caused by the same error that had caused the stalls of the Scot's car at the Spanish Grand Prix and Mika Hakkinen's in Austria.

"We just haven't done a good enough job," Dennis said.

"But even so it is like saying why does McLaren have a car that is capable of being on pole position. Some bits we're getting right, some bits we're getting wrong.

"I'd like to make lots of excuses for us, but it's just that we're making a meal of trying to optimise it.

"We try to optimise everything and sometimes we introduce a complexity that catches us out. We can't hide from our weaknesses. It's our screw up."

There have been good points given away through technical issues

  Dennis on his team

In the last two races, other teams also had problems. McLaren was the only team to suffer in Monaco.

It was doubly embarrassing because Dennis had said earlier in the weekend that the team were confident they had solved the problem after doing more than 1,000 practice starts.

Rule changes three years ago removed restrictions on electronic driver aids in the transmission.

This has allowed the teams to use devices like automatic starting systems, traction control and automatic gearboxes.

But the systems are very complex and they have to be programmed to cover all the different eventualities that might occur.

In each of the last three races, McLaren's system has become confused and gone into fail-safe mode, which shuts down the engine.

Coulthard said: "I'm very disappointed because I've worked very hard the last few days and I haven't been feeling 100% - I've had a small chest infection - and I've had to dig very deep within myself to get the performance.

"I'm doing everything I can to try to fight for this championship. I know I've had very good reliability and I've finished every race, but equally there have been good points given away through technical issues.

"As a team we're all very disappointed by that."