McLaren target Silverstone

Testing has not gone to schedule

Wurz crashes new McLaren

Profile: McLaren

McLaren have confirmed that they will not introduce their new Formula One car until after the next two Grands Prix at the Nurburgring and in France.

Ron Dennis' team are now likely to target a British debut for the car at Silverstone on 20 July.

McLaren said they would not use the new McLaren-Mercedes MP4-18 before they were 100% convinced by its reliability.

"It is imperative that we do not jeopardise our championship campaign by introducing a car which has not been developed sufficiently to achieve the requisite level of reliability," a McLaren spokeswoman said.

"The logistical challenges of the two back-to-back races at the Nurburgring and Magny Cours do not support an introduction of the new car during these races.

"We will therefore only introduce the new car once we are confident that it will enhance our championship programme."

The new car has been hampered by problems during testing in Spain - first Kimi Raikkonen crashed in Barcelona earlier this month before test driver Alexander Wurz wrote off one of the new cars at Jerez last week.

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

McLaren driver David Coulthard

The MP4-18 also failed to complete a race distance at a private test in Barcelona.

McLaren are nine points behind Ferrari in the constructors' standings and Raikkonen is three points adrift of Michael Schumacher in the drivers' race.

If McLaren risk introducing just one car - as Ferrari did last year - then it is expected that Britain's David Coulthard could get the nod at the wheel.

McLaren have had only limited time to test the car and with a busy fortnight approaching they will not get time to put it through its paces until after the trip to Magny-Cours.

While the British-based team are keen to get the car on track before the summer deadline on 24 August they repeated that the championship crown remains their top priority.

"Our goal is to win the 2003 Formula One world championship," added the spokeswoman.

"We believe that we are in a good position to do so and that the strategy to employ the MP4-17D in the first half of the season has provided us with the platform from which we can achieve our goal."