Martin Whitmarsh has insisted that McLaren will continue to work on their new car, rather than reverting to the 2012 model.
The team has previously admitted that the MP4-28 is not ready to challenge at the front of the grid at the Australian Grand Prix.
The team principal told Autosport.com: "I think at the moment the best thing for us is to work and understand this car. The season is incredibly long; if you are going to win races and championship you have to develop the car during the whole year.
"We have wanted to give ourselves the scope to do that, and probably if we had stuck on the original concepts of last year's car we would probably be stronger here today.
"But we have made a decision. We will work through this and we will have a car with more potential than we had last year."
The Australian Grand Prix takes place tomorrow, with the rain-delayed qualifying session being completed at 12am GMT.
