A dejected Charles Leclerc insisted Ferrari are "so far behind" after qualifying in 10th for the sprint race at the United States Grand Prix.
The Monegasque suffered a difficult opening day of track action at the Circuit of the Americas, which saw him miss some of the only practice session due to a gearbox issue.
Ferrari quickly repaired Leclerc's car in time for sprint qualifying; however, the 28-year-old struggled in his SF-25.
He ended the session a full second adrift of polesitter Max Verstappen, with him painting a miserable picture for the Scuderia afterwards.
Asked if he knew where Ferrari were losing lap time, a dejected Leclerc simply responded: "Everywhere. Honestly, my lap was clean in SQ3. I don't regret much what I've done in my lap.
"Maybe a little bit more mileage [in practice] on the medium, you can fine tune the car a little bit better.
"There might be one-tenth in that, a tenth-and-a-half, I don't know, but it's not enough. We are so far behind now."
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Leclerc not expecting a miracle
Leclerc qualified for the sprint race behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton, although even the seven-time world champion found himself nine-tenths behind Verstappen in eighth.
It was an alarming session for the Maranello-based outfit, who were comfortably beaten by Stake F1's Nico Hulkenberg.
Hulkenberg was the top Ferrari-powered driver in fourth, managing to go almost five-tenths quicker than both Leclerc and Hamilton.
Following sprint qualifying, Leclerc is not expecting Ferrari to make strides towards the front across the remainder of the event.
"I'll be very surprised if we find something that will make us such a jump," added Leclerc. "But I hope I'm wrong. "But unfortunately for now, it just seems like it's the potential of our car.
"It's very surprising, the teams that are very strong this weekend, apart from, obviously the McLaren and the Red Bull, which is expected, but you've got Nico in front that has done probably an amazing lap, and he's been consistently fast this weekend.
"So we just need to understand if they understood something that we didn't but, but it was a very poor day."
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