McLaren is targeting a top four finish in the Formula One constructors' championship this year, but says it could take a few races before the full potential of its new car is released.
The new MCL60 -- which breaks McLaren's naming convention of recent years to mark 60 years since Bruce McLaren founded the team -- was launched at the team's UK factory in Woking on Monday.
The new car appears to be an evolution of last year's McLaren MCL36, which secured fifth place in the 2022 standings behind rivals Alpine.
Lando Norris will race at the team for a fifth season alongside rookie teammate Oscar Piastri, who replaces fellow Australian Daniel Ricciardo.
New team principal Andrea Stella is hopeful McLaren will move up the order by at least one place this year, but warned that some of the car's potential would not be unlocked until upgrades later in the season.
"I think it's fair to say that over the course of the season we would like to establish ourselves as part of the top four," Stella said. "We know realistically with the top three teams, this may mean potentially being the fourth best car over the course of the season.
"We are realistic in the very short term, there's good developments already in the pipeline that should land trackside very soon in the season and should allow us to take a decent step forward.
"We are not naive, we know that pretty much every team will be saying the same, 'we have good developments' and so on. Like I said, we also have more high level developments going on in the team."
Stella explained that some areas of development weren't uncovered early enough to make it to the launch car but would offer a step forward with an upgrade package after the first four rounds.
"I think while we are happy with the development of the car in most of the areas, there is some areas which we realised a little late into the development some really strong directions," he said.
"So, not necessarily we will be able to capitalise these directions in the very short term, and that's why I also talk about the developments coming just after the start of the season.
"So in this sense, I just invoke realism. In a way, it's more relative to ourselves but it's such a competitive game that I would be surprised if - normally you need to be totally happy and totally at the top of what you can do to achieve your targets let's say - that's why we talk about realism."
A new wind tunnel will be completed at the team's factory later this year which CEO Zak Brown hopes will propel McLaren back to the very front of the grid by 2025.
Stella said the recent investment in infrastructure would have a greater impact on next year's car than this year's, but underlined the importance of the new facility for the team's progression.
"The benefit of having the infrastructure is a long wave, and it pays off for a long time," he said. "Having the new infrastructure coming to fruition immediately, realistically we should start to see influence on the 2024 car.
"It would be very difficult to influence the '23 because, by then, you will already be pretty focusses on the '24.
"So let's say 50 per cent of the benefit [is] on the start of the '24 [season], and 100 per cent of the benefit is on the development of the '24 in-season next year."