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Lewis Hamilton is confident McLaren can take on Red Bull on a more level playing field once it gets the complex blown diffuser working well on its MP4-25.

The championship-leading Woking squad had hoped to begin taking the initial benefits from the concept when it introduced it at its home Silverstone event last weekend, but was forced to abandon running it from Saturday onwards after it created handling and reliability problems.

Hamilton and team-mate Jenson Button nevertheless managed to salvage strong second and fourth places finishes respectively from the weekend, although Mark Webber still cruised to victory for the pace-setting Red Bull squad.

McLaren is aiming to resolve the problems it experienced at Silverstone in time for the next round in Germany and Hamilton says that, while it will take time to fully optimise the concept on the car, the blown diffuser will undoubtedly provide a step forward in performance.

Asked by reporters if he thought the MP4-25 would be in different shape at Hockenheim, he replied: “I hope so.

“I’m sure it will be a step forward if we get the rear floor.

“It’s not going to be a simple fix. They are going to put it on and we to have to work with it to really try and understand the set-up, try to tweak and fine-tune it to try to really make it work like the Red Bulls have, because they’ve had it since Barcelona.

“But I think we can get it working and when we do we’ll be able to fight them [RBR] properly.”

Although McLaren is currently trailing a number of its chief rivals in the development of the ‘blown diffuser’, Hamilton and the team still lead their respective championships at the mid-way point in the season.

The 25-year-old former champion acknowledges their position in the standings is a big bonus given the MP4-25 isn’t yet the fastest car, admitting the team “over-delivered” at Silverstone by finishing two-four.

“It’s very important because we’ve not been fastest,” Hamilton added.

“We are on the real back foot trying to defend with a slower car because we don’t have the upgrade package.

“The Mercedes has the upgrade package, the Renault has the upgrade package, the Ferrari has and the Red Bull has that blown diffuser.

“So we are still yet to have that and it’s worth quite a bit of time, maybe four tenths, five tenths, who knows. So we are waiting for that.

“But we have to go into each race at the moment and try to get as much as we can from the package we have.

“We over-delivered this weekend. I think we did a great job even though we are only on the old floor."ITV-F1