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Fernando Alonso believes that McLaren don't need to give up on this year's car yet in order to produce a competitive package for 2017.
The two-time world champion has struggled since returning to the British team at the start of last season, so far scoring just 29 points in 25 races and failing to record a single race win or podium finish.
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With fresh regulations set to be introduced next year, struggling teams will be expected to begin work on next year's car early in order to close the gap. Alonso however thinks that McLaren can continue to make strides this year, while getting a good start on their 2017 challenger.
"If we were in a normal situation we could keep improving and finish close to the top three teams," said Alonso.
"But next year's regulations require a job to do, and all the teams will stop the development of this year's cars and maybe we will get stuck at this performance level for the second part of the year," he continued. "Let's see, but what is clear we are growing, we are moving in the right direction, with a lot of things coming this year that will make us more and more competitive."
Alonso says that having two big manufacturers in McLaren and Honda behind the team is a positive and both working together will help the team ove forward.
"We need to combine these two things, and also for the team it's important this year to finish as high as possible in the constructors' championship," he said. "It's not that you can stop completely this year, so we will try to do both things.
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Behind top 3? No, thats likely not possible, Williams are too strong. Beating Force India and Toro Rosso will likely not be easy, but they do look sort of reachable for McLaren as it stands right now. Does anyone know if Honda still have tokens left? The upgrade they release could surely not have been worth all of their remaining tokens, right?