McLAREN LAUNCHES NEW CAR.(Competition)(the new McLaren-Mercedes MP4-18 debuts)

The new McLaren-Mercedes MP4-18 made an inauspicious debut in its first shakedown runs at the Paul Ricard High Speed Test Track. A faulty hydraulic sensor delayed proceedings May 21 and the following day test driver Alexander Wurz stopped within the first lap with an undisclosed problem and only a handful of laps were completed with no representative lap times.

There has been a cloak of secrecy at the southern French circuit to prevent close-up pictures of the new car. McLaren dispatched a crew to keep a cover over the stricken race car before it was towed back to pit lane. It was reported that on one occasion when the car did return to the pits under its own power there was a brief fire on the fairing close to the exhausts. After all that Wurz said, "I felt good in the car. It was very nice to be the one to drive it first. I could see that everyone was so excited on the team and that a lot of effort had gone into this. The big bosses had flown in from around the world, and they were like a lot of kids who had a new toy. Today was all about system checks, to look at the consistency of the car. It has a seven-speed gearbox but I was only using six today and short shifting. I had a speed limit. We only did a few laps today, but we will build that up as the tests progress and maybe get to a level where we can look at the performance. We are not planning any race distances or anything like that.''

Technical director Adrian Newey and designer Neil Oatley were principally involved in the design of the new car, which is shorter and lower than the long-serving MP4-17.

"This car has probably had more research put into it than any other car I have worked on,'' Newey said. "There are clearly visible developments, such as the shorter, lower nose and the rear end. The MP4-18 is generally much smaller and is quite tightly packed to achieve this. We've aimed to improve the aerodynamic efficiency and we used some advanced materials in its construction. Our simulation results look promising in terms of the MP4-18's performance step over the MP4-17D, but by definition simulation is not always 100 percent accurate, so we have the usual sense of excitement and expectation running the new car.''

De Ferran sticking around

Indy 500 winner Gil de Ferran was quick to dispense with talk he might be close to announcing his retirement now that he has a Borg-Warner Trophy to go with his two CART titles (2000 and 2001). He said on the morning after the 500 that he still enjoys driving and doesn't consider the risk of injury too great despite having suffered two head injuries in the past nine months.

"I enjoy challenging myself,'' de Ferran said. "I still get a thrill out of it. As long as I feel that, my life as a race car driver will go on.''