The McLaren MP4-18 (sometimes stylised as MP4/18) is a Formula One car which was built with the intention to compete in the 2003 Formula One season. The car, designed by Adrian Newey, Mike Coughlan, and Neil Oatley, was a radical new design that incorporated numerous ideas that were still in their infancy in Formula One. Many of these ideas would be used again, such as the blown diffuser on the Red Bull RB7. Several problems with the car that revolved primarily around cooling the engine and gearbox meant that the car was stillborn. Background The 2002 Formula One World Championship was a disappointing season for McLaren. The MP4-17 of that season was regularly off the pace of the Ferrari F2002, despite team principal Ron Dennis stating that "I think it [the F2002] is beatable." The MP4-17 was further hampered by reliability issues, with both cars finishing at only four races. Ultimately, McLaren would finish behind Williams-BMW in the Constructor's Championship, scoring only 65 points–37 less than in the 2001 season and finishing third, a place lower than in 2001. After the 2002 season concluded, the FIA Formula One Commission met in London to decide on regulation changes. Most of these changes affected the way race weekends were structured, with some changes to testing, namely that three teams could commit to the FIA to run no more than 10 car-days of private testing between 1 March and November. The teams who committed to this limitation on private testing were provided with extra testing time on the Friday of each race weekend, from 09:00 to 11:00, with their spare car and test driver. McLaren did not commit to this choice, meaning that McLaren would have the 10 car-days of private testing, something they utilised to its maximum extent. Dennis commented that despite the lack of technical changes, the FIA should "leave the regulations alone and we will catch up and hopefully surpass the performance of Ferrari. If you change the rules, you are opening the envelope again and that will make it more difficult – not less difficult – to arrive at a point of having competitive racing." McLaren also decided to delay the debut of the MP4-18, with former McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley saying in an exclusive interview with The Race, "If we were going to catch Ferrari, we'd have to go way beyond what people considered normal." A shadow team