Carlos Sainz has accepted Ferrari is currently unable to compete with McLaren, who overtook the Italians in the constructors' championship last weekend in Hungary.
McLaren claimed its first one-two since the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, whilst Charles Leclerc and Sainz finished fourth and sixth respectively.
Ferrari was comfortably fourth in the pecking order at the Hungarian Grand Prix, although Sainz's race was not helped by a poor start.
The Spanish driver was disappointed with what he described as his first bad start of the year, which is now being analysed by the team.
"Obviously, disappointed, because the start cost me pretty much the whole race," Sainz told media including RacingNews365. "First bad start of the season, so it's not like I can be too hard on myself or on the team.
"We need to analyse whether it was my mistake in the procedure, whether we just had too aggressive clutch settings for the start and we just paid the price with that wheel spin that didn't get me off the line. So we'll have to have a look and analyse the data.
"At the same time, as I said, one bad start in the whole season, all the other starts have been great.
"So I'm going to try and not be too hard with myself or the team, and it's just a shame that it happened at the track where the start is probably more important."
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McLaren too strong
Following the Hungarian GP, Ferrari has slipped to third in the standings and are currently 16 points behind McLaren.
McLaren appear to have the strongest package currently, with Red Bull also encountering some performance-related setbacks.
Sainz is not surprised to have seen McLaren overtake Ferrari and does not see the Italians competing with them in the coming rounds.
However, he is hopeful that the gap will reduce once a decent upgrade is introduced by the Maranello-based team.
"Yeah, I think it was a matter of time that McLaren would overtake us given its performance and our performance. So yeah, it happened," added Sainz.
"And it was pretty much an easy one-two for them, and we were P4 and P6 which is more or less where we've been the last three or four races. Now it's time to get our heads down.
"It's going to take a bit of time to bring a package that is able to fight McLaren. I don't think we can bring it obviously for Spa or the first race after the summer break.
"But hopefully soon after that, we will come up with something that will close the gap and we can get back in the fight."
Also interesting:
In the latest episode of the RacingNews365 podcast, Ian, Sam and Nick look back at last weekend's Hungarian GP and look ahead to the Belgian GP. Max Verstappen's recent radio rage and Lando Norris almost ignoring McLaren team orders are discussed!
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