Cause for concern at McLaren? 'Not all areas have been completed'

Work to do for McLaren

"We look to build on the momentum of last season but are realistic in the knowledge that every team will have made progress and found competitiveness for their 2024 cars. We now have everything in place from an infrastructure, people and culture perspective so we continue to push forward and build on the work done to get us back to front of the grid," Stella said.

At the same time, the team boss is tempering expectations after McLaren effectively ended the 2023 season as the second-fastest team behind Red Bull Racing. "The team has done a good job over the winter, and we are confident we can hit the ground running, but we know we have important tasks at hand before the season starts," added Stella.

Stella: 'Not completed everything we wanted to tackle'

He continued: "There are a number of innovations on the car, but not all the areas we want to address have been completed for our launch-spec car. Those areas now become the focus of our in-season development, which is already in progress."

McLaren CEO Zak Brown added: "The fantastic thing about this sport is how competitive it is, and therefore we must remain realistic as every team will have made progress in the off season. The true test of whether we’ve made steps in the right direction will be qualifying in Bahrain. We’re all excited to go racing again, but we know there’s a long season ahead of us and a lot of work still to do to ensure we build on the progress we made throughout 2023."