New McLaren faces delay

The MP4-18 looks set for a Silverstone debut

McLaren have admitted that their new car is unlikely to make its debut at the European Grand Prix.

The McLaren-Mercedes MP4-18 had been expected to see its first competitive action at the Nurburgring on 29 June.

But the team's reluctance to risk reliability problems means next month's British Grand Prix at Silverstone is a more realistic target.

"I think you won't see it before Silverstone now," David Coulthard admitted as he prepared for the Canadian Grand Prix.

"The new car is quicker but we have to wait until it has developed reliability and then we will have it racing.

Pace and reliability have to be the deciding factors

McLaren technical director Adrian Newey

Testing of the MP4-18 suffered a setback in Spain last week when Kimi Raikkonen had what team-mate Coulthard described as a "pretty big accident", costing the team a day's testing.

McLaren are likely to make a definitive decision after further tests at Jerez next week.

But the fact that the French Grand Prix is just a week after the European makes Silverstone on 20 July the most likely option.

"The car has shown a lot of potential but before we race it we have to develop it to be absolutely reliable," said Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug.

"It would be realistic to expect us to race the car for the first time at Silverstone."

Prudent view

The MP4-18 failed to complete a race distance at last week's private test in Barcelona, and Haug's caution was backed up by McLaren's technical director Adrian Newey.

"Pace and reliability have to be the deciding factors," said Newey.

"We have said since we released the car that the Nurburgring was the earliest we thought we could race it.

"I think we will probably take the prudent view that it is a little bit early. But we haven't made that decision yet.

"The problem is that after the Nurburgring you have Magny-Cours the week after, which puts the debut back to Silverstone."

McLaren could risk introducing just one car - as Ferrari did last year - if the old car is not competitive in Canada on Sunday.

"You only split the old car/new car if you don't have enough parts to support two new cars," added Newey.

"Or if you felt the new car had more performance and were concerned about reliability."