McLaren rolled out several major sets of upgrades at last year's Austria and Singapore rounds that completely turned around its fortunes, going from a midfield struggler to a team that could fight for podiums with Ferrari and Mercedes over the second half of the campaign.
In the early races of 2024, McLaren managed to consolidate its position and even move ahead of Mercedes. But at the launch of its MCL38 in February, the team already said it had more promising development projects in the pipeline that it couldn't finalise in time for the launch version.
