Charles Leclerc was left stunned by the gap to polesitter George Russell following qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, despite Ferrari staging a recovery in practice.
Leclerc will start from second on the grid at the Baku City Circuit, a staggering eight-tenths of a second adrift of Mercedes driver Russell - the widest margin between the top two all season.
The Monégasque driver has confirmed he was aided by team-mate Lewis Hamilton on his final push lap in Q3, but even that was nowhere near good enough to get close to Russell.
"Honestly, it was quite a good lap," said Leclerc. "Lewis was in front by three, four seconds, and I managed to do a good lap at the end, but when I saw the gap to George, the lap wasn't good enough.
"Overall, we've been on the back foot all weekend. We kind of expected to be very far off after a difficult Thursday.
"But this morning I had a bit more hope. In terms of position, it's where we expected to be, but in terms of gap, it's a lot more than we expected."
As to how he and Ferrari will fare on Saturday in the race against the lightning pace of Russell in his Mercedes, Leclerc added: "We will see.
"Our straight-line speed is not our strength, but the pace was quite strong in FP1 on high fuel, so I hope it will be the case tomorrow."
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