Lewis Hamilton concedes McLaren-Mercedes are facing a difficult home race in Germany as the team will not be introducing major upgrades to their under-performing MP4-24.
This year's Championship has been anything but successful for McLaren and their defending World Champion as their 2009 challenger has sorely lacked speed, something the team has struggled to find even when adding updates to the car.
As a result Hamilton and his team-mate Heikki Kovalainen haven't scored a single World Championship point in the last four races, leaving McLaren down in sixth place in the Constructors' standings, a marked difference to last year's achievements.
And, unfortunately for McLaren fans, Hamilton isn't expecting any better at the next race in Germany.
"While we aren't expecting any major upgrades for this weekend, I'm still looking forward to the race," he said.
"It's an honour to be part of the Silver Arrows and, while our results haven't recently shown it, we're still pushing incredibly hard and are all hopeful of moving closer to the front before the end of this difficult season."
The Brit, though, is nonetheless eagerly awaiting a return to the Nurburgring, which last hosted a Formula One race back in 2007, Hamilton's first season in F1.
"It's a fantastic circuit, a little older than a lot of the current tracks we currently visit and with quite a different feel to what we're used to: it's fast and flowing with some good spots for overtaking," he said.
"And it's in a fantastic part of the world too; deep in the forests of western Germany, where the fans seem to live and breathe Formula 1. It's always an amazing party atmosphere whenever we race in Germany."
Team boss Martin Whitmarsh has also downplayed McLaren's chances at Mercedes's home race: "While we can't expect to match our previous record in Germany, where we've won the race for the past two seasons, we're still pushing hard to develop MP4-24 into a more competitive proposition.
"Make no mistake, we're hugely proud of having the Mercedes-Benz three-pointed star on the front of our cars - and nothing would make us prouder than getting back to the front again as soon as we possibly can."
Source : Planet F1
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