The McLaren MP4-19 is a Formula One racing car that was built by McLaren for the 2004 season. The chassis was designed by Adrian Newey, Paddy Lowe, Pat Fry, Mike Coughlan and Peter Prodromou with Mario Illien designing the bespoke Ilmor engine. The car was driven by Kimi Räikkönen and David Coulthard. It was described as a "debugged version" of the ill-fated McLaren MP4-18, but it was not a successful car. The team suffered various problems concerning reliability at the beginning of the season, with eight retirements in the first seven races. Launch control and fully-automatic gearboxes were also banned for 2004, meaning the driver had to start using the paddle-shifters, and find the effective bite point and release the clutch manually, again. These electronic driver aids had been used by