[maxsona]

McLaren are confident they will improve on their disastrous Melbourne performance in Malaysia.

Managing director Martin Whitmarsh said the team had learnt some important lessons in testing at Valencia last week.

He is hopeful that this weekend’s race at Sepang will yield a higher standard of performance and more points than the Australian GP a fortnight ago.

He said: "Our overall performance at the Australian Grand Prix was not at the level we are aiming for this season. However the Formula 1 world championship is about 18 events, not just one and the West McLaren Mercedes team is fully focused on taking the significant performance step that is required to achieve the desired outcome.

“We had various development programmes taking place between Australia and Malaysia, including the four day test at Valencia, Spain with Pedro at the wheel of the MP4-19.

“We worked on a number of programmes, completing more than 1,000kms and have received some useful feedback, which we will incorporate and consequently hope to improve our competitiveness for Malaysia."

Kimi Raikkonen is heading to a track where he took his maiden and so far only grand prix win last year.

But the Finn admitted that his immediate targets this weekend would be more modest.

He said: "The Malaysian Grand Prix is of course an event that has good memories for me, as I took my debut Formula 1 victory at last year's race.

“Although I would like to repeat that result, the main focus for this weekend is to work on improving our performance from Australia and hopefully to score some points to kick-start our 2004 season.”

Team-mate David Couthard, eighth in Melbourne, added: "The Australian Grand Prix was not an ideal start to the season for myself, Kimi and the West McLaren Mercedes team.

“Everyone has been working hard on the test track and our facilities in Woking, Brixworth and Stuttgart and hopefully we will be able to improve in Sepang.”