Sunday March 31st, 2002

McLaren boss Ron Dennis was encouraged by the lack of dominance from the new Ferrari in Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix and insisted the Italian team can be beaten despite World Champion driver Michael Schumacher's controlled performance at Interlagos.

Schumacher comfortably led the race from the start, moving over briefly for his teammate Rubens Barrichello and losing the lead for a short second time through the pitstops. But Dennis was comforted by the fact the new Ferrari, which was hastily introduced for Brazil after passing reliability tests in Barcelona, was not as dominant as had been expected.

"It was a pretty impressive performance really by Michael but at least they didn't have the level of dominance that was anticipated from the new car," said Dennis. "I think it is beatable. Some people are portraying it as unbeatable, but time will tell and I think both Williams and ourselves know that there is more to come and three or four races from now I think we will be a lot stronger.

"We are here to win but it is tough at the moment. Until you are winning races everybody can say that the team is uncompetitive and that is the way it should be. We are lacking in some areas and until we solve those areas we are going to struggle to be competitive. It is a step in the right direction but we weren't that uncompetitive in Malaysia."

David Coulthard, who eventually finished third, suffered for 41 laps as he was stuck behind the new Renault cars of Jenson Button and Jarno Trulli, after the pair made better starts. Coulthard's teammate Kimi Raikkonen was also stuck behind the Renaults for much of the race, and Dennis believes that McLaren could have been closer to the leaders had their drivers made better starts.

"I think it would have been a bit more interesting for us if we hadn't got stuck behind the Renaults but they made better starts and it took us a while to get past them," said Dennis.

"At the end of the day, the nature of Formula One is that you have got to have such a performance advantage to get past it's just not that easy."

Published at 22:00:20 GMT