Eric Boullier says McLaren-Honda is "past the dramatic time" in terms of the teething problems it has suffered in the opening four races of 2015.
McLaren finished the first race of the season two laps off the pace but was just one place away from scoring a point in Bahrain. But progress remains gradual, with an unresolved electrical issue hampering Jenson Button throughout the weekend and causing the 2009 world champion to miss the start of the grand prix completely.
However, racing director Boullier is happy that McLaren is over the worst of its problems.
Asked if he was encouraged by where the team was after Bahrain, he said: "Yeah, sort of. Obviously we are still having glitches on one car and the other car was trouble-free all weekend more or less, so it's encouraging. It's good to see we can make some progress and we are just about ready to score points on merit. We're still far from where we want to be but I think in some way it looked very dramatic and now we are past the dramatic time so there is some progress."
Honda is bringing an upgraded power unit to Spain and Boullier says improving reliability will be a key focus.
"The reliability programme is still going on. It's good to see Fernando [Alonso] doing his second race in a row with no problems, but on Jenson's car it's still not good enough. The reliability package is more or less working but still not at the level we would like to be, but the maturity of the project is very, very young."