'Old' McLaren to race in Monaco.

Ron Dennis confirmed in Austria that the McLaren Mercedes squad would continue to race the uprated MP4-17D in the next round of the world championship, in Monaco, because he feels the introduction of the latest MP4-18 would not make much difference to the team's performance.

Dennis cited the fact that the tricky Mediterranean street circuit puts a premium on two factors - driver skill and reliability - adding that there was no sense in rushing the competition debut of MP4-18 at a venue where concrete and steel wait to catch out the unwary.

"I think perception of the car's sharpness is coloured by grid positions rather than finishing positions," he told Britain's Independent newspaper while defending the 'old' car, "We think that the car is capable of competing against, and being more competitive than, anything other than the Ferraris.

"They have a stronger car now in the F2003-GA, which is able to give us a harder time, to say the least. We knew that they would probably come sooner to the circuit with their new car than we would with ours, but only as the world championship unfolds will we see if our strategy was right.

"I see their car as an incremental improvement on what they had before, not a big step. So we are quite optimistic about our ability to compete in the latter half of the season, whenever we introduced our new car. We're not panicking."

Although outsiders believe that McLaren's decision to delay the introduction of the new car this long could count against Kimi Raikkonen and David Coulthard in any championship battle with Ferrari, particularly as Schumacher has now won three races on the trot to close to within two points of the Finn at the head of the table, Dennis is adamant that the time isn't being wasted.

"The way we have to tackle the programme is not to produce one model of the car and test it, but to produce several of them - and all the components - and then race it as soon as we see fit," he continued, suggesting that the new car has been modified to take into account the latest rules changes, "That tends to slow the rate at which the first car is built because you have to go through all the crash test process simultaneously. That's a bit of a challenge while maintaining the 17D and pushing its competitiveness as well. Difficult times, but that's life."

With the 'flyaway' Canadian Grand Prix following after Monaco, it may be that the MP4-18 is not introduced until the resumption of the European season, at the Nurburgring [29 June] or Magny-Cours [6 July]. McLaren sources have confirmed that the current latest date for the new car's introduction would be at the British Grand Prix on 20 July.