"We're back!" has been the McLaren boast since Lewis Hamilton returned to the top step of the podium in Hungary.

As McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale rightly noted, it has required "a Herculean effort" to erase the pain felt at the start of the season.

The team went into the first meaningful test at Barcelona in mid-March and found they were two seconds off the pace, a chasm in Formula One terms.

It was also of huge embarrassment just four months after Hamilton was crowned world champion in the most dramatic of circumstances.

But as a world champion, McLaren responded as only they know how, leaving no stone unturned and working around the clock.

As Neale said: "If we take a look at what happened this year, then clearly we didn't get the start we'd expected or hoped for.

"I, amongst others, was on record at the end of last year saying to our partners and others that we faced the biggest regulation change for nearly 20 years, and there could well be some upsets.

"At that time I was not predicting, nor was it part of the master plan, that we were going to be part of that upset.

"When we rolled the car out in Barcelona in week 11, along with the other teams, it was clear something was awry.

"But I have to say the organisation has reacted in a phenomenal way to that.

"It's very easy, when you find yourself under that kind of intense pressure, to start tearing yourselves apart and point fingers.

"So the job for the management team, myself and the engineers, was to pull everybody together and draw on the strength in depth we have, and provoke a fight.

"Not internally, but with the competition, and I've been delighted with the way the team has responded.

"It's been a phenomenal fight, one I'm very proud to have been associated with.

"But we are not declaring victory; what we're declaring is 'we're back', and now we have a lot of work to do through the summer to continue to fight."

There have been lessons learned and practices put into place that will undoubtedly serve the entire McLaren organisation well for the future should the team ever suffer a repeat of their earlier woes.

Only recently, Hamilton learned of one employee who had worked 36 hours straight at his machine to ensure the 24-year-old returned to winning ways.

The Health and Safety Executive might frown upon such ethics, but it was a case of whatever needed to be done, do it - a measure of exactly what has been required to get back to the front.

"We didn't do a good job by our standards over the winter months, so we needed to step up to the plate and put that right," remarked Neale.

"We put immense pressure into aerodynamics and design organisation to cut out all the non-priority tasks.

"A lot of the nice-to-have jobs were focused down very tightly, and then we said to the manufacturing team that we needed to halve the time to market on most of the items.

"We duplicated tooling, we worked round the clock, and we had some programmes we called the 'don't-put-down' programmes.

"These were items that if they were in your department, in your hands, you weren't to take a tea break.

"Whilst you had it, it was not going to be put down, and when you had done what needed to be done, you handed it to the next bloke."

The reward was the sight of champagne flowing again in the McLaren motorhome at the Hungaroring and their garish rocket red t-shirts being unpacked after Hamilton's success.

But as you can expect there will be no resting on any laurels now.

The team started their compulsory two-week factory shutdown at midnight on Sunday, but when the doors open again on the McLaren Technology Centre on Monday, August 17, it will be as if they have never been away.

"Nobody, me included, likes to get beaten. In fact I'm a really poor loser, I have always been a really poor loser," added Neale.

"I know Ron (Dennis), Martin (Whitmarsh) and many others are really poor losers, and we are not about to get used to that.

"We were really clear in saying to everybody, 'there are no magic solutions, no golden bullet to suddenly make everything perfect overnight'.

"But what we did was monumental, so on the Monday morning when we come back in, we will pick everything up as if nothing was missed.

"There will be no time for a slow ramp-up. It will be a full-court press, to use a basketball analogy."

There will be no titles for McLaren this year, replaced instead by an immense amount of pride at the amount of effort required to turn their season on its head.

It is that kind of attitude that separates winners from also-rans.