How bad is McLaren's post-Honda era so far?

The narrative is almost irresistible. A once-great team, McLaren, ditches troublesome engine partner Honda and then struggles again pre-season with Renault propulsion while Toro Rosso thrives with Japanese power.

And when the McLaren causes two red flags on the opening day of the second test and has another problem in the pitlane, all a week after Fernando Alonso's car became a candidate to be used as a metaphor by shedding a wheel on the first day of running, on top of visible adaptations being made to the bodywork because of cooling problems, it's too easy to open the laptop and churn out explanations of why the team is in crisis.

But things are nowhere near that bad. Yes, McLaren has had problems. Yes, it hasn't shown a turn of speed capable of taking the fight to a Red Bull team that, thanks to their shared engine supplier, is its natural benchmark. But the mood in the team is still positive and the car, when moving, is working pretty well - and it passes the 'eye test' as well from trackside.

On Tuesday there were two problems with electrical shutdowns and the team is still chasing the root cause of the issue. The afternoon stoppage was caused by a hydraulic leak.

Such unreliability cannot simply be shrugged off and needs to be sorted out to ensure McLaren can make the most of the rest of testing having completed only 38 laps on the first day of week two.

Pre-season, engineering director Matt Morris said the objective was for McLaren to run 500km (310 miles) per day in testing. Even if you give it last week's Wednesday washout (Alonso completed 11 laps) for free, its current rate is just under 350km (218 miles) per day.

There's only so long that minor problems can recur before they indicate something more serious. On day five of testing, it can be par for the course. Come the first race weekend, if not fixed, it will be much worse.

"This is a new relationship with Renault, so there are a few things we are discovering - as a team as well," says McLaren racing director Eric Boullier. "The glitches we have had so far are not very important, but they are stopping us running.

"The car is also quite complicated, so every time you have an issue you spend hours to strip everything off, fix it, and rebuild the car.

"The car is new so the mechanics are not used to going fast. Generally, between testing and the European season, you change an engine in six hours and by Barcelona [the Spanish GP in May] you do it in two-and-a-half hours, so that's how much you can progress in working on the car. We are at the beginning now.

"The wheelnut we had last week and the exhaust problem, they kept the car in the garage for hours just to repair them."

The exhaust, in fact, has been at the root of a few dramas, not just the problem with a £2 bolt that caused a stoppage last week. The car ran on Tuesday with three additional slots cut in the engine cover to deal with some heat soak pockets that were causing small scorches on the bodywork. Boullier admits some minor underbody cooling design changes need to be made. Again, not unusual but troubling if not sorted by Melbourne.

"It's funny because some people believe we did qualifying runs, which I'm fine with" Eric Boullier

But when the car is running, things look far more promising. From trackside, it looks like it's doing what drivers Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne want. As Boullier points out in reference to criticisms of a car last year that, early in testing at least, looked bad, for the first time Autosport technical expert Gary Anderson has been positive about McLaren this winter.

The dynamics of a car cannot lie. They can be assisted by improved grip from the tyres and low fuel loads, but the McLaren is an honest and true car on track. What's more, the drivers are revelling in the improved drivability of the Renault engine compared to the Honda they struggled with last year.

It was notable that Alonso was at the track throughout most of Tuesday to keep tabs on the progress of the team and Vandoorne. If the double champion's level of engagement in goings on is the barometer of McLaren's hopes, then he seems relatively content.

Performance-wise, it's hard to judge where the car really is on lap time. Vandoorne has set the third fastest lap of pre-season testing so far with his first-test hypersoft run, although on the first day of the second test his best time was a second-and-a-half off pacesetter Sebastian Vettel having completed only 38 laps. What is worrying is that, while rivals such as Renault were putting in a race run, McLaren was in the garage.

If you had to take a punt on where McLaren was on pace right now, with a generous interpretation you would say being ahead in the battle for best-of-the rest with Renault is eminently possible. But given the size of the gap between the big three and the rest last year, it's impossible to say whether that would make it anything close to a top six threat. Right now, you'd say probably not.

But what McLaren is most pleased with is the correlation between the expectations for the car and how it performs on track. That is critical to validating the development direction.

The team is remaining tight-lipped about its development plans, but with a new engine supplier it's sensible to be a little conservative with the test car and then pile on performance when you know you are on firm ground.

During the team's launch event, aerodynamics chief Peter Prodromou said McLaren has been focusing for two or three months on a race-one upgrade he described as "decent". Only then will it be possible to judge McLaren's true level. How extensive a "decent" upgrade should be is up for debate, but there's time to sign off a lot of parts in two or three months so a big step is possible.

There's also the fact that McLaren has tried to make itself operate more sharply during the Honda years. After being left behind by Red Bull in terms of parts turnaround, this is an area McLaren has improved. And if it's made those steps as Boullier claims, that bodes well for progress in the season.

"We worked for three years to improve our efficiency as a parts maker, which means from design to release to hitting the track - and the key is correlation," says Boullier. "The correlation looks good because the car looks as per map, as the engineers say.

"The development could be good because you know what's coming now in the next three races. And if it correlates, it's good performance. But I can't tell you if it's good enough to beat Red Bull or Renault or whoever, it's too early."

One of the criticisms of McLaren during the first test was that it was doing its running using the softer, and faster, tyre compounds. Its fastest times were set on the softest-of-all hypersoft. Vandoorne's best Tuesday time was set using the supersofts.

So is this about glory runs, or is there more to it than that? Frankly, it's more to do with track conditions and Boullier's explanation rings true. The key is that this year's tyre compounds have a linear progression of what temperatures they are suited to, with the hard suited to the highest temperatures and the hypersoft the lowest. In the past, the compounds have tended to alternate.

"It's funny because some people believe we did qualifying runs, which I'm fine with," says Boullier. "The truth is, we knew it was going to be very cold so we chose the tyres that were easiest to work with, which were the softer ones.

"We were not planning to do long runs because we wanted to try to recover partly from the bad weather. With a lack of track testing, you do short runs, so again you use short [stint] tyres. That's where the reasoning came from, nothing else.

"I discussed with a few other teams and they were planning to work on the soft and supersoft and for some reason they saw someone going fast on mediums and tried them.

"The problem is, you needed nine laps to switch [the mediums] on. When you plan short runs, you don't want to do 12 laps every time you go out."

And what of old partner Honda, whose new team Toro Rosso did a good job of racking up the miles in the first test, although it only managed 54 on Tuesday due to a brake system problem? Boullier isn't letting that concern him, especially given the Renault engine package has shown itself to be capable of winning.

"There are two rules in racing: don't over-promise and under-deliver, do the inverse, and the second is just show on the track your results" Eric Boullier

"You know you have a race-winning engine in the back of the car, so you might not be the best in the pitlane but it's still good enough to fight for podiums and race wins," says Boullier.

"Clearly, there is a big boost in terms of morale for the team, a bit of excitement. I was impressed in the last three years with McLaren keeping the motivation, trying to be the best race car and this change is a massive boost.

"We had to reset the mindset a little bit to move into finding performance in the car, in the race team, in the operation of the team. There was a momentum on this - it's good."

Realistically, the minimum McLaren needs to deliver this year, assuming the Renault power unit package is up to it, is fourth place in the constructors' championship. That would be a good return, even if it's still behind Red Bull - and that would also require it to beat the works Renault team.

The proof of the pudding, to butcher a phrase, is in the results. And right now, even amid some problems the car looks to have the potential to be in that position.

"There are two rules in racing: don't over-promise and under-deliver, do the inverse, and the second is just show on the track your results," says Boullier. "I'm confident to say, let's meet again in Australia."

And there is a statement that Boullier and McLaren can be judged by come the last weekend in March.

The cloud has lifted from the team, but the flip side of that coin is that it no longer has any excuses. Time for McLaren to show us what it can really do.