New McLaren man prepares for debut.

Heikki Kovalainen insists that his focus is solely on the opening race of the season in Melbourne next weekend as he prepares for his Formula 1 debut with the McLaren Mercedes team.

Kovalainen joins the team from Renault in what is effectively a driver-swap with Fernando Alonso and will be keen to secure a better start to his second season in F1 than he enjoyed last year.

Then, the young Finn qualified in 13th place before coming home outside the points in tenth at the start of what was a challenging run to kick-off his debut season, with the opening five races of the year yielding just three points.

However, with a solid testing programme behind him since joining McLaren prior to Christmas, Kovalainen said he was looking to start the season well, with his focus on securing a solid finish in Melbourne before looking to the remainder of the campaign.

"I am looking forward to my first race with the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team," he said. "I think I have prepared well and I hope I can have a better start to the season than last year. This is my target, but I am aware that I still need to learn many things, I am still in a learning process with the team and I know there are things I need to improve. But I believe I have a solid base and we are ready to get out there and start the season.

"At the moment for me the focus is just on the first race and trying to start it better than last year. Hopefully we can finish the race and have a good start to build on. Then, later on in the year, trying to improve the performance all the time. To be honest, for me it is better not to think about it too much about anything but the first race."

Kovalainen added that it was already clear to see the changes that McLaren has made to its new MP4-23 since it hit the track for the first time and said the package was ever-improving going into the season opener.

"I knew that Vodafone McLaren Mercedes always developed the car well before and during the season, but it is very easy to feel the changes we have made to the car between the first and last test day," he said. "We have improved the MP4-23 reasonably well and I hope this strength continues throughout the season, with the car will be getting better all the time.

"We have been able to put more grip in the car, make it more drivable, the whole package is moving forward all the time."