McLaren says it still has confidence heading into the final pair of events this year despite its prospects of finishing third in the standings taking a significant blow.
McLaren headed Ferrari prior to the start of the recent triple header in Mexico, Brazil and Qatar but endured a troubled run of events.
Daniel Ricciardo failed to score at any of the grands prix while Lando Norris added only four points to his tally amid a spate of incidents and setbacks.
It has left McLaren 39.5 points behind Ferrari in the battle for third place in the championship.
“I think to a certain degree we also have to accept the triple-header was tough for the entire team, scoring four points in three races is obviously painful,” said McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl.
“But if you look at also what happened, we lost a lot of points, things have been out of our… it was just bad luck and it’s part of the sport that we are in.
“I think again the good thing is that we have seen we have a competitive car, we were competitive on track and the team did a good job, we did very good pit stops.”
At each of the three events McLaren displayed pace for a haul of points but incidents precluded it from grabbing a potential higher position.
Ricciardo was involved in a costly Turn 1 clash in Mexico, with Norris suffering a similar setback in Brazil, while the Briton was running fourth in Qatar when he sustained a puncture.
“We definitely would have been P4 or P5 on merit [in Qatar] that’s why it’s an even bigger shame that we had this puncture,” added Seidl.
“After them two unlucky weekends for us in Mexico and Brazil, it would have been good to score a good result independent of the battle that we are in the Constructors’ Championship.”
