World champion Lando Norris said he feared it will be a "long, tough season" after steering his McLaren to a distant fifth at the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday.
The Briton was well off the pace all weekend as Mercedes and Ferrari dominated, having adapted more quickly to new rules around engines, chassis and aerodynamics.
Norris has been critical of the regulation changes, claiming they are taking the sport backwards.
But he was content with finishing fifth in Melbourne given how far McLaren seem to be behind their arch-rivals at the start of the season.
"P5 is a good result, I think we maximised what we could achieve today," he said.
"The gap to the guys ahead is pretty big and we clearly have a lot of work to do, which we thought might be the case coming into this weekend."
Norris was encouraged by how he was able to hold off charging Red Bull ace Max Verstappen, who came sixth after starting from 20th on the grid.
"The fact that we could defend against Max and keep him behind, even though he had a lot more pace, was positive," he said.
"But we need to work hard to understand where we're losing pace to the front runners, as well as understanding how we can approach the weekend better.
"I've got full confidence in my team to be able to do that, but it's looking like it's going to be a long, tough season."
His teammate Oscar Piastri failed to start his home race after crashing out on a lead-up lap and team chief Andrea Stella said it was important that Norris got in the points.
"It was very important to finish it with Lando, to gather as much data and learning as possible under these new regulations," he said.
"Lando did a great job to adapt to various scenarios... however we finished some distance behind the leaders so it is clear we have work to do."