McLaren is set to introduce the second part of its major update at next weekend's Monaco Grand Prix, following a much improved performance at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Its first big upgrade of the 2017 season helped Fernando Alonso record McLaren's best qualifying result of the season with a stunning seventh place on the grid at his home race in Spain. Hopes of taking the Woking-based team's first points of the year were dashed by a first-lap clash with Felipe Massa as Alonso ultimately finished 12th.
McLaren racing director Eric Boullier says he has seen enough positive signs from the performance in Barcelona, along with the data correlated with the team's windtunnel and CFD, to feel confident the next part of the upgrade package will perform as hoped.
"We have restructured and rebuilt the team and now it is working and operating very, very well," Boullier told Autosport. "You can see the results: and our correlation rate is unbelievable.
"In Spain we brought a new front wing, new bodywork, new floor, and new rear wing and it is correlating 95%. And with this year's new regulations meaning there are big gains every time you work in the windtunnel or CFD, we see big potential still."
Boullier believes McLaren now have a car capable of achieving the top ten on merit, though he reiterated competing for the lower reaches of the points is nothing to warrant getting excited about.
"What we had on the car [in Spain] was the first part of the package and the second part will be in Monaco," he explained. "It has allowed us and Fernando to step up into this midfield pack, and this is a fact not fantasy.
"It is not hope -- we know that on the less power sensitive tracks that we can be in the points," he said. "But we are not racing to be seventh. I told Mansour [Ojjeh, McLaren shareholder] that on Saturday.
"He got excited about qualifying, and especially when you watch the telemetry live, you can see where he [Alonso] was gaining and where he was losing, so for maybe three seconds you will go, 'yes, another step done!' But the next thought is: 'it is just seventh, you know'. So nothing to be really excited about."