Tuesday, October 3 2006 16:02 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London : McLaren boss Ron Dennis insisted that Kimi Räikkönen could have won the team's first grand prix of the season on Sunday had the Finn not been forced to retire for the sixth time this season.

McLaren have yet to win a race in 2006, the closest being four second places. With only two races remaining, the Woking-based outfit face the indignity of finishing the season without a win, the first time in a decade.

"Kimi's strategy and car set-up were more than capable of winning the race," maintained Dennis.

"Unfortunately a failure of the engine throttle mechanism forced him to retire. Pedro struggled with front-end grip and had a spin following his pitstop. However he did well to finish fifth, and the entire team now looks forward to the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka next weekend," he said.

Räikkönen, who will be leaving to join Ferrari next month, was disappointed not to have finished the race in Shanghai.

"That was a shame as it was looking like we could achieved a win," he said optimistically.

"I don't know exactly what happened, but all of a sudden the throttle didn't react correctly and the engine went into safety mode and selected neutral. I'm disappointed, but at least we showed that we have the speed, so I'm looking forward to Japan now," he said.

Team-mate Pedro de la Rosa, who has still to learn of his fate for next season, said, "A difficult race for everybody. I made a wrong call after the first stint when I asked my engineer for a different set of intermediate Michelin tyres. In hindsight I should have stayed on the ones I had, like Kimi, as the track was drying, and I suffered from graining."

"This lost me a lot of time but apart from that our pace was good. Our car seems to be on the pace. I'm sure we will win a race before the end of the year," he said.