After a full season of perfecting every practice program, over-achieving (slightly), dumping all my resource points into the Engine, I've finally gotten Mclaren into the midfield (barely) after 1 season on 110 difficulty. And I still have many many upgrades to go, so it is very possible to take a team to the top in my opinion.
https://imgur.com/a/eMPVT
https://imgur.com/a/eMPVT