The vicious cycle protecting Mercedes and Ferrari

McLaren's relief at finally ditching Honda and moving on to papaya orange pastures new is palpable. Fernando Alonso was on typically bullish form in Australia, talking up his Formula 1 team training its laser focus on Red Bull, despite some obvious residual shortcomings with the MCL33, and a 1.3-second deficit to the fastest RB14 in qualifying.

There's not too much to get excited about really. But everything is relative. McLaren has only to glance backwards to see how much worse things might have been had it stuck rather than twisted last season. Despite the swell of excitement over an unusually reliable winter, Honda endured a muted first race with Toro Rosso in its post-McLaren nirvana.

Both Toro Rossos dropped out in Q1, with a 1.7s gap to the front. That's a tenth worse than the team managed at Melbourne last season, and almost three tenths worse than Honda managed with McLaren at the 2017 season-opener. This was followed by an all-too-familiar engine failure in the race, when Pierre Gasly's MGU-H gave up the ghost. You could almost hear the harrumphs of schadenfreude satisfaction coming from the McLaren boardroom.

Triumphalism at conquering the past is all very well, but the future is where it's at. And a glimpse into that is fraught with potential frustration. Red Bull knows this already. It feels it has built a car capable of fighting for a world championship, but will again be hamstrung by an engine not powerful enough to compete for the vital pole positions needed to make good on that aerodynamic promise.

It is clear Red Bull feels Renault will probably never square the hybrid turbo circle. Team boss Christian Horner now wants equalisation of engine modes between qualifying and the race, such is the level of pessimism within Milton Keynes.

"They [Mercedes] have a quali mode they don't need to use in the earlier parts of qualifying," said Horner, after seeing Max Verstappen right in the mix through Q1 and Q2 in Australia only to wind up more than seven tenths adrift of Lewis Hamilton when it mattered. "There are bits in the pipeline [but] that's more of a question for Renault than for me because they're not divulging everything they're up to.

"It's certainly something we're pushing for. Alternatively, maybe the engine mode should be the same from the moment you leave the garage until the end of the grand prix."

Whether or not Hamilton's ultimate advantage was down to correct tyre preparation as much it was engine power, Horner's comments suggest Red Bull fears Renault has come up against an immovable buffer in efforts to discover its own 'magic modes' for qualifying, so requires more help from the rule makers beyond a winter tightening of regulations concerning oil burn.

Renault F1 boss Cyril Abiteboul wants the current engines to be frozen in specification from the start of next season - he says to avoid investing in expensive duel development until new rules come into force for 2021. Red Bull supports Abiteboul's stance, arguing there should be additional performance balancing to within a 3% tolerance across all manufacturers, perhaps managed by fuel flow. Faith Renault can match Mercedes and Ferrari in the interim is clearly in short supply.

By 2021, McLaren's engine deal will be up for renewal, but how will it feel in the meantime if it can knock its car properly into shape yet cannot compete for more than maybe the occasional podium, owing to the impenetrable might of Mercedes and Ferrari - even if (and it's a big if) McLaren can match Red Bull in the chassis stakes?

Faith Renault can match Mercedes and Ferrari in the interim is clearly in short supply

The novelty of escaping from its Honda nightmare will eventually wear off, to be replaced by that nagging sense of doubt, frustration and loathing that Red Bull knows all too well. That's why Red Bull now has a foot in both camps - desperately hoping Honda will start to make good on its nascent ambitions with Toro Rosso, and reveal McLaren to be the true ogre of the McLaren-Honda nightmare.

But things have not got off to a dream start. Toro Rosso is no McLaren, but it is also no better off relatively speaking now than it was with Renault at the start of last season. Arguably, it's current competitive position is worse. Last season, Toro Rosso managed a double points finish in Melbourne with Renault customer power. For all the newfound harmony, fuelled by Japanese cultural seminars, all it has to show for its first race with Honda power is a broken motor and zero points.

Toro Rosso argues there is much, much more to come once Honda gets its feet properly under this new table.

"We didn't hide the fact that after testing we really thought we were in this midfield battle, which I think has proved to be the case," says Brendon Hartley. "Two tenths and we were three or four places up the road [in qualifying].

"A lot of the resources, energy, over the winter months were [spent on] integrating the new Honda powerplant and starting this new relationship. The strategy over the next six months is aggressive and everyone in the team is pushing very hard. I'm very optimistic for the remainder of the season."

But this is the sort of worn out promise McLaren became crushingly familiar with. Red Bull also knows the pain of over-promise and under-delivery all too well as far as this particular engine game is concerned.

Red Bull has a great car, powered by an unworthy engine; McLaren has a decent car and a better engine than before, but is yet to realise the extent of Renault's struggles under these regulations; Toro Rosso is delighted by the opportunity to be a works partner for the first time, but is yet to discover Honda's persistent failings; Honda feels it finally has the correct concept for its engine, but has yet to offer any real indication it can unlock the sort of performance needed to properly compete.

The Japanese manufacturer continues to live by hypothesis. Ditto Renault, endlessly struggling to tip the performance scales without ruining the reliability counterbalance, all while spinning the other plates involved in building its own nascent works operation into a properly credible force.

No one said this would be easy, and it is human nature to live in the hope offered by the great unknown of the next 20 races. But so far there is no obvious sign of escape from the depressing cycle of underachievement that currently encircles Red Bull, McLaren, Renault, Honda and the Toro Rosso guinea pig - all of them playing a game of competitive musical chairs with no obvious happy ending.