Even with the newly revised V8 engineA senior representative of the McLaren-Mercedes team has admitted that the new MP4-21 racer is not ready to dominate Grand Prix in 2006.
Even with the newly revised V8 engine now up and running, Mercedes` competitor director Norbert Haug said progress at the silver team is currently lagging.
"We are not where we wanted to be in mid February," the German told Auto Motor Und Sport. "At the moment, we are perhaps where we should have been in the middle of December."
The new Mercedes V8, reportedly correcting problems with the inlet system and the pistons, has moved the MP4-21 closer to the leading pace.
But analysts still estimate that, if the Bahrain opener was held today, McLaren`s Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya would finish behind the two Renaults, the two Ferraris and the Hondas.
Haug maintained a similar theme in the Motorsport Aktuell magazine "Some teams are ahead of us. Certainly, we would not mind if we could add another month to our preparation time. But we are doing everything possible in order to be competitive for the first race in Bahrain. We have not had a dream start. We are behind where we want to be."
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