McLaren Racing chief executive Zak Brown said the team are “realistic” about expectations for the new season as they unveiled their new car.
McLaren’s Lando Norris was the second highest scorer behind runaway champion Max Verstappen in the final 12 races of last year after a major car upgrade.
But Brown said: “Every team will have made progress in the off-season.”
Norris said he had “full confidence we’ll continue pushing forward off the back of the turnaround last season”.
McLaren’s new car, the MCL38, will have its first test at Silverstone on Monday with Norris and his team-mate Oscar Piastri driving.
It will run alongside the new Mercedes, which is also being unveiled on the same day.
“The fantastic thing about this sport is how competitive it is, and therefore we must remain realistic,” said Brown.
“The true test of whether we’ve made steps in the right direction will be qualifying in Bahrain.
“We’re all excited to go racing again, but we know there’s a long season ahead of us and a lot of work still to do to ensure we build on the progress we made throughout 2023.”
The Aston Martin, unveiled on Monday, has already run at Silverstone, as has the Red Bull, in a secret test before its official unveiling on Thursday.
The official pre-season test is in Bahrain from 21-23 February, with the first race also in the Gulf state on 2 March.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “We now have everything in place from an infrastructure, people and culture perspective, so we continue to push forward and build on the work done to get us back to front of the grid.
“Before we hit the track for competitive sessions, we have a lot of work to do, including putting the MCL38 through its paces during the Bahrain pre-season test.
“The team has done a good job over the winter, and we are confident we can hit the ground running, but we know we have important tasks at hand before the season starts.
“There are a number of innovations on the car, but not all the areas we want to address have been completed for our launch-spec car. Those areas now become the focus of our in-season development, which is already in progress.”
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