Lewis Hamilton and his McLaren-Mercedes team-mate Heikki Kovalainen attended a crisis meeting of the British formula one team's technical staff at their Woking headquarters yesterday after a disappointing four-day test at Barcelona revealed their new MP4-24 challenger is not yet quick enough. With only a fortnight to go before the first race of the 2009 season in Australia, both drivers struggled with the new car's handling balance. It was a bitterly disappointing note on which to round off a week in which the new Brawn-Mercedes set an impressively competitive pace in the hands of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello as the world champion was unable to get near the lap times set by the former Honda squad's new car.

Martin Whitmarsh, who took over from Ron Dennis as the McLaren team principal on 1 March, admitted that the problem might well not be fixed in time for the opening race of the year, although he insisted that Hamilton and Kovalainen would be testing hard for four days at Jerez next week before the cars are loaded up to be air-freighted to Melbourne next weekend.

"I don't think we have done a good enough job," said Whitmarsh candidly. "There is no point in hiding from that fact. We just have to get our heads down and work hard to fix it. We will rectify the problem as quickly as we can, even though that might not be as quickly as we would like.

"What you have to remember is that the underlying chassis of the new car is based on the one which won the world championship last year. We are a team which is accustomed to winning. We are not where we want to be at the moment and we are not seeking to hide from that reality.

"We believe we do not have the aerodynamic performance that we need. But teasing more speed out of a formula one car very seldom involves a silver bullet. We have to be realistic and pragmatic about this and it will take time to rectify the problem." Whitmarsh emphasised the fact that there was no blame culture at McLaren and that he was particularly impressed with and appreciative of the support the team had received from Hamilton and Kovalainen. "The fantastic and gratifying thing is to see Lewis's confidence and belief in the team and its capabilities," he said. "He won the world championship with us last year and knows we have the potential to do it again."

As far as the performance of the Brawn-Mercedes is concerned, Whitmarsh said he was delighted that the former Honda team had been saved, conceding that he had been pleased to play a part in brokering their deal to use the same engines as McLaren. He did not seek to downplay their impressive testing performance at Barcelona. "For the moment I think we must assume that the Brawn is as quick as it looks and that the McLaren is as slow as we were," he said.

Last year Hamilton opened the season with a strong performance to win the opening race in Australia. This year he may have to settle for an exercise in damage limitation as he begins the defence of his title.