I'm getting to grips with McLaren, says Montoya.

Juan Pablo Montoya says he's happy with his performance in the Australian GP, despite the off-track incident that caused his engine to cut and put him out of the race.

Montoya says that he in Melbourne he felt more comfortable with the McLaren than at any time since he joined the team last year. He has always insisted that the car did not suit his driving style compared to the Williams he was used to.

"I'm happy, and I think I had a little bit better pace than Kimi all weekend," he said. "I came back after qualifying and I said to the guys it's the first time actually I could get in the car and just push it. It was the first time with McLaren that I could do whatever I wanted with the car.

"Last year I was just going with the car, now I'm driving the car. Hopefully we can reflect this into the other races. We had a couple of new things on the car, and compared with the engine I had in the last two races, it was a big step. It was revving much better."

Montoya says that the MP4-21 still understeers more than he would like, but he can cope with it: "It's driveable, I push the car in, it's predictable, and it's a lot better to drive. We have a new suspension for about three races' time, and that should get rid of some of the understeer."

Montoya had a wild weekend in Australia, spinning in qualifying, behind the safety car, and most embarrassingly, on the parade lap to the grid. Luckily the aborted start meant that he could take up his original place.

"You should ask the team what I said in the radio. That's what I thinking! Then when it was aborted I thought I can't be that lucky. Everything was going OK, and I thought it would be OK the rest of the race, but it wasn't."

His race ended when he rode over the curbs at the last corner, and the engine cut: "You think you're in, and suddenly you're out. I hit the kerb, so I lifted, got on the kerb, and as I brought it back, it jumped. I came out and it was rolling - you're in neutral with the gearbox broken. I think when it switched off, it just didn't know what to do."

Meanwhile McLaren team boss Ron Dennis insists that McLaren is in the hunt for the championship, despite some frustrations in Australia: "I think we demonstrated we're competitive and capable of winning. After that there were all sorts of things that happened in the race and moved it all around, and it didn't come out as well as we would have liked. But the important thing is that we have a significant lower points' deficit than this time last year, and we have a competitive car.

"Kimi's problem was the flat-spotted tyre vibrating the front wing. Once we'd changed that, he had the pace to pull Alonso in. Juan Pablo's retirement wasn't his fault. He went wide, and it should have been able to take that impact, but it activated a safety system and turned the engine off."