McLaren had no option but to be ambitious in the design of its new Formula 1 car for the 2018 season despite enduring a difficult pre-season testing programme, according to racing dir𓄧ector Eric Boullier.

Following its split with Honda after three difficult seasons, McLaren's new partnership with ಌengine suppl🐭ier Renault got off to a bumpy start in Barcelona as the team suffered numerous issues on its car, causing it to slump to the bottom of the mileage charts.

Fernando Alonso was able to recover from an early issue on Friday to record the third-fastest time of the test, but concerns about another year of hardship 🍌for McLaren linger.

Asked to respond to those suggesting McLaren had "lost its way", Boullier said to "wait and see" 🙈wha✤t the team was capable of in the season before making a final judgement.

"[You can't] jud🍬ge based on a few issues on three days, it's better to wait a few races," Boullier said.

"The last three years was a difficult context. We are now trying to get McLaren back where it should b⭕e. Like anything, you don't do it in one day. There are maybe a few glitches.

"We have not lost our capability of d♒es♔igning fast cars, and I hope you will see it on-track soon. We have to be ambitious.

"That's also why to be ambitious we hཧave to take risks. We need to put everything back together and are working together."

While Boullier conceded the odds of further reliability issues at the start of the season were increased by the reduced test running, the Frenchman saꦉid that a rebuild of the car ahꩵead of the season-opener in Australia on March 25 should help McLaren's cause.

"Obviously we have not run as much as we wanted, so there will be a hig🍸her risk of failure somewhere," Boullie♛r said.

"N🐲evertheless, we had only minor issues whic♏h were all different.

"I think a good reb🎀uild of the car for Australia will help us to fix a fe♒w issues."