Charles Leclerc admitted it had not been a "good day" for Ferrari, the Monegasque understating his team's dismal qualifying performance at Spa which left both drivers well down the pecking order.
The Saturday afternoon session was just more of the same for the House of Maranello, unable to pull itself out of a seemingly worsening slump.
The SF1000's miserable engine power coupled with its chassis issues, both of which were magnified around Spa's low downforce fast sweeps, meant that Leclerc and teammate Sebastian Vettel will line up respectively 13th and 14th on tomorrow's grid.
"It’s very difficult to find an explanation," said Leclerc when questioned on the cause of Ferrari's grim under-performance.
"It’s a big step back compared to the others so we need to try and find the main issue, try and address it.
"It’s not a good day but it’s like this at the moment. We need to keep working very hard.
"I think everyone in the team needs to keep their heads up even though it’s very difficult in tough times like this."
Ferrari's loyal suite of Tifosi are likely losing patience, yet Leclerc warned there would be no sudden turnaround in the Scuderia's state of affairs.
"I can also understand the fans at home that are very disappointed," he said.
"It’s understandable but as drivers we will try and make the best race possible tomorrow even though we can’t expect any miracles."
Vettel echoed Leclerc's comments, insisting the current depressed level of performance was a reflection of Ferrari's limited potential.
"It is the true picture," said Vettel. "It is what the car can do around here today so obviously we tried everything we could and there was a lot of effort going in from last night to today trying to make things better.
"I think we did [improve] a little bit but obviously we are not where we want to be, but this is not the first race and the first qualifying where this has been the case.”
"We try to do our best. This is obviously the car that we have and the car that we know now for the whole season so far. So it is not a surprise today."
Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
Max Verstappen’s racing curiosity has never been confined to Formula 1 – and now, one…
When F1’s radically redesigned 2026 cars finally roll out in Barcelona at the end of…
Max Verstappen has never been one to sugar-coat reality – and as Formula 1 braces…
Ferrari have survived decades of criticism about strategy calls, driver politics and pit stops that…
While the paddock has been whispering for months that Mercedes might be holding the winning…
Dan Gurney passed away on this day in 2018, and here at F1i we'll never…