[maxsona]

Dennis wanted Canada-debut
MP4-19B not race-ready yet

Can the MP4-19B fix all of the team’s problems?

McLaren should be 'close to the top' of the F1 timesheets by the end of 2004.

Woking's 'F1 CEO' Martin Whitmarsh told Motorsport News that "we want to win a race or two" this season with the newly-tested and heavily revised 'B spec' car.

Kimi Raikkonen tried the MP4-19B model at Silverstone last week.

Whitmarsh said the Finn and team principal Ron Dennis were 'sufficiently buoyant' about its early performance that an early Canada-debut was mooted.

But the former managing director put his foot down.

"I'd love to say 'we're taking it to Canada,'" Whitmarsh continued. "But it would be irresponsible. It still hasn't passed all... checks."

The French GP, in very early July, is a "sensible target," he concluded

F1Live

Coulthard questions new McLaren delay
'Little risk' in introducing the new car

F1's David Coulthard would probably have preferred to cancel his flight to North America and done a thousand miles or three on a European development circuit.

The Scot confirmed his dreadful McLaren will still be dreadful in Canada and then the United States. "There's nothing new on it," he said on Wednesday.

DC, 33, and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, smoked out of Mercedes' recent home event at Germany's Nurburgring with an embarrassing total of three engine failures.

Since then, though, a 'B spec' car model has debuted at test track Silverstone.

But 'F1 CEO' Martin Whitmarsh has now confirmed that 'MP4-19B' will stay in Europe to await another post-North American tour test session late this month.

David thinks McLaren probably could have brought the new car to Montreal.

"With the problems we've got," he told ESPN, "there is a little risk in introducing an updated car - because we're not finishing with the old one."

F1Live