Why McLaren is flattering to deceive

Breaking into Q3 straight out of the blocks in Australia. Doing that again with both cars and finishing 'best of the rest' in Bahrain. Lapping within a second of the pacesetting Mercedes in Friday practice in China. Meagre gruel perhaps for a team schooled in utter dominance, but this smattering of bright performances might suggest McLaren is on the verge of ending its long exile from Formula 1's top rank. Or does it?

There's a refreshing candour in the air at McLaren these days. Perhaps it's because of the swinging changes that have swept the polished corridors of its Woking base with troubling regularity these past few seasons.

Perhaps it's because last year's painful competitive low finally emptied the bank of complacent cant: if nothing else, the months after the expensive divorce from Honda palpably scratched McLaren's preferred narrative - that it made great cars, shame about the lousy engines - from the roster of acceptable excuses.

So while it's possible to interpret the highlights of the season so far as clear signs of recovery, 2019-spec McLaren isn't a team in the business of kidding itself. Lando Norris's qualifying performance in Melbourne was as assured and silken as any highly rated rookie might hope, but a rigorous look at the underlying pace of the midfield cars suggests he owed his place in Q3 to Renault falling short of its own potential at the crucial moment.

Likewise in Bahrain, sixth place fell into Norris's hands when Nico Hulkenberg's Renault broke, though he'd got himself into a position to capitalise by showing good pace after a strong start, backed up by a strong team performance in terms of strategy and pitstop operations.

All in all, though, it was a triumph of execution rather than a showcase of latent potential in the car. In China, the strong headline pace Norris and Carlos Sainz Jr showed in second practice melted into the ether during the qualifying hour.

What's telling is how the team processed this disobliging fluctuation. When asked by Autosport whether his 14th place on the grid was a case of McLaren losing performance or rivals gaining - a little under three tenths separated him from 11th-placed Daniil Kvyat's Toro Rosso - Sainz was disarmingly frank where once a McLaren driver might have resorted to bluster.

Identifying and understanding problems isn't the same as fixing them, and sub-par aero performance is a greater challenge for McLaren than most

"If I were to have spoken to you on Thursday [before practice] I'd have said this was a track where we were definitely going to struggle a bit more than in Bahrain or Australia," he said. "So we were kind of anticipating that coming here."

The suggestion is that McLaren is still a long way from cultivating a deep understanding of the flaws that have bedevilled its past few cars.

Broadly, last year's woeful MCL33 was limited by a combination of vices, many of which were 'baked in' to the design at the concept stage: an overly draggy aerodynamic map that somehow managed to be light on downforce as well as slow in a straight line; a tendency to lose more aero performance through poorly controlled wheel wake when steering lock was applied; and a chronic rear-end instability that sapped driver confidence unless that driver happened to be Fernando Alonso.

That latter tendency was visible from trackside, especially into slow corners such as Barcelona's chicane: a sudden upward heave and roll around the rear axle, and an ungainly lurch, followed by a sharp correction from the driver. It was clear, too, in the MCL34 during pre-season testing just a couple of months ago.

But in China - with the caveat that Shanghai International Circuit's mix of long straights and mostly low-energy corners is a very different bowl of noodles compared with Barcelona - the trackside view seemed markedly different. Could it be that the MCL34 had thrown off its St Vitus's Dance? Er, no, reckoned Norris.

"We improved some things from last year and some things we haven't yet," he said. "I've never been here before so it's hard to compare. It didn't feel too different from what it did in Bahrain.

"Although there aren't loads of corners here compared with Bahrain or Australia, we aren't fastest on the straights but we're definitely not fastest in the corners, so there's a lot of work to do to get the car better.

"But that is obvious and has been since the beginning of the season."

Identifying and understanding problems isn't the same as fixing them, and sub-par aero performance is a greater challenge for McLaren than most because its in-house windtunnel at the McLaren Technology Centre has long been obsolete.

Like Racing Point, it uses the Toyota Motorsport tunnel in Cologne - a cutting-edge facility but a considerable and costly schlep from Woking. Racing Point, a team whose ambitions have expanded as its pockets have deepened under new ownership, is doing away with this inconvenience by transferring its aero research to the Mercedes tunnel in Brackley later this year.

McLaren doesn't have any such cosy arrangements within easy reach. McLaren also has a new and independently minded technical director in James Key.

Once his feet are ensconced below the desk he's highly likely to push for a new car concept for next season and will be inclined to write off the MCL34 as a basket case. In that event, 2019 will become a 'learning year' for the team akin to the last one.

"We're certainly under no illusions. We know there is a lot of work ahead of us" Gil de Ferran

If the MCL34 does prove to be carrying fundamental limitations then all McLaren can do is play to its considerable strengths on the operational front. So far it has taken every opportunity that has come its way, and might even have more points on the board but for Sainz's engine fire in Australia (a Renault MGU-K failure), Sainz's clash with Verstappen in Bahrain (a racing accident), and both drivers being torpedoed by Kvyat on the first lap in China.

"The team is very good at maximising the package," said Norris in China. "Even if it's a bad balance or a good balance, or whatever, they're good at maximising everything and extracting every little bit out of the car.

"That's a strong point for McLaren and us altogether compared with the other teams."

Sporting director Gil de Ferran added: "Call it good execution, it is part of a good performance.

"We not only have to build a good car, we need to have a good engine, great drivers, but you have to execute well on a weekend.

"What does that mean? You have to get the set-up in the right place so you maximise what you have in your hands. You have to have a good start, you have to call good race strategy and get good pitstops.

"We're constantly trying to improve all of those areas, so there is not one area that we don't try to move forward a little bit every day.

"We're certainly under no illusions. We know there is a lot of work ahead of us - I've been saying that throughout winter testing and the first few races, and the mindset hasn't changed. There is still a long road ahead of us."

That might not be the kind of conclusion McLaren fans will receive with great joy. But it's clear evidence that this is a team which has accepted the need to change, and whose management has grasped its weaknesses after years of fruitless and bubble-headed denial.

It's a sign, too, that McLaren is looking forward, not back.