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Once-mighty McLaren, who failed to make an appearance on the Formula One podium last season, completed a miserable hat-trick of races without a point at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Despite the poor run of form, their longest drought in five years, racing director Eric Boullier said there were signs of progress.
“Yesterday, our qualifying form showed that we’d taken a small step forwards in terms of performance,” said the Frenchman after former McLaren driver Hamilton chalked up his fourth win in a row for Mercedes to take the overall lead.
“We know our journey to full competitiveness won’t be a short one, but it’s already clear that the trend is in the right direction.”
For 2009 champion Jenson Button, F1’s most experienced driver, three blanks in a row represent his worst run since he was at Honda in 2008. He finished 11th, with Danish rookie team mate Kevin Magnussen 12th.
“You just do the best job you can with the car, you learn something, and we learned something today,” the Briton, who will be testing in Barcelona next week in preparation for the showcase Monaco GP, said.
“I feel we have progressed, but the first lap made all the difference because we couldn’t get temperature into the tyres which cost us a lot because it is so difficult to overtake at this circuit.”
McLaren, partly owned by Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat, slipped to sixth in the championship.
