Fernando Alonso is still convinced McLaren can aim for the championship in 2017 despite failing to record a podium so far this season.
McLaren and Honda have shown vast improvement from 2015, when the Japanese manufacturer joined the V6 turbo era a year behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault. The team has become a regular fixture in Q3 and has already surpassed its 2015 points tally, though top ten finishes have not been consistent.
With a significant regulation change to come next season Alonso is happy to wait for future success.
"Next year we want to win the world championship," Alonso said in an interview with Autosprint. "It may sound strange being where we are, but the goal is that. I would like to be ahead more often, but now the situation is what it is. I take it as a maturing project -- waiting for better times.
"Last year was very difficult, it was painful -- because we had problems at tracks that probably could have been solved with testing. This year we see that things have improved.
"We may be the team that has improved the most in the last 12 months. The problem is that the other manufacturers have been working for 36 months and is not easy to regain the lead in half the time.
"We have achieved reliability, but we still lack performance. That will come next year. And I'm sure the time will come when we will be best of all."
Ahead of the season Yusuke Hasegawa replaced Yasuhisa Arai as head of Honda's F1 project, while former Volkswagen Director of Motorsport Jost Capito is set to join as the team's F1 CEO after the summer break. Alonso says the changes being made are helping McLaren and Honda make up for lost time.
"Progress has come. The new boss Hasegawa comes directly from racing and is more open to new ideas -- and has a different philosophy. Things have improved, but we are aware that we are at least eight months behind on our planned objective. Plus there are still small mistakes we make on weekends -- like with strategies in qualifying or the race.
"Capito will have to get involved in those aspects, using the inspiration from his previous experiences in other categories. These small changes will help us progress quickly."