McLaren and Williams, two of the greatest teams in Formula One history but starved of success for years, start the season next Sunday knowing wins remain a long way off and the task is not getting any easier.
When Red Bull's motorsport consultant Helmut Marko gave his verdict on the sport's pecking order after pre-season testing, he was dismissive of the British outfits.
"McLaren and Williams are at the back," he told speedweek.com.
If that sounded harsh on McLaren, who set some fast laps, nobody would disagree with the assessment of Williams, who arrived late at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya and were slowest. While denying any crisis or chaos, Williams also announced on Wednesday, only days before the cars are due on track in Melbourne, that technical director Paddy Lowe was taking a "leave of absence". Few expected to see him return. With 17 constructors' titles, 19 drivers' crowns and a combined total of 296 grand prix victories between them, the teams from Woking and Grove in England have shown their pace mostly in sinking down the grid of late.
Neither have won anything since 2012. Once-dominant Williams, who turned the likes of Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve into world champions, finished last overall in 2018.
McLaren, the team of the late Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost who also took Lewis Hamilton to the first of his five titles in 2008, ended up sixth and would have been seventh without the failure of Force India.
That could still be seen as an improvement after finishing ninth in 2015 and 2017.
"It's obviously a very important year in that we show a big step forward," said team boss Zak Brown when the new McLaren was launched. "When we made the change (from Honda to Renault engines) last year I think we were probably a little bit overexcited about how quickly we would return to the front, and we got that wrong.
"We've looked in the mirror to understand where we went wrong and made a lot of changes, both structurally and operationally. So this is a very important year to show forward progress."..