Lewis Hamilton qualified an encouraging fifth in Melbourne, but the seven-time world champion admitted that Mercedes is currently not making any progress with its troubled car.
Hamilton's final run in Q3 enabled the Briton to slot himself between McLaren's Lando Norris and his Mercedes teammate George Russell, but 0.957s behind poleman Charles Leclerc.
Mercedes were top-ten contenders in all three practice sessions but the Brackley squad's performance relative to its Red Bull and Ferrari rivals did not improve.
Hamilton is nevertheless hopeful that progress will materialize sooner rather than later.
"I don't know what is coming yet, but I'm really, really hopeful," he said. "I know everyone is working really, really hard, but we've had three races and no progress in the three races.
"So I really hope over this next week we can get as much information as we can from the race tomorrow, and I hope that we're able to somehow figure out how we can fix something for the next race."
©Mercedes
Hamilton reckoned that only time will and hard work help his team solve the issues impacting the performance of its W13 Silver Arrow.
"It's been quite a short turnaround," he said. "It takes a long time to make stuff. There's nothing particularly exciting coming at the moment.
"I wish I could be optimistic, like yeah the next one we've got something better coming. But at the moment we don't."
Onboard footage of Hamilton at work revealed once again the omnipresence of Mercedes' porpoising problem which is forcing the team to run its car in a configuration that reduces the vertical bouncing effect but also compromises its performance.
"In some places it doesn't feel terrible: it's just not as fast as the others," Hamilton explained.
"Where I'm really unhappy is the porpoising. That's the worst characteristic I've experienced in the car. And we can't get rid of it at the moment."
Russell, who clocked in 0.108s behind Hamilton in qualifying, agreed with his teammate that the porpoising phenomenon was the single biggest factor currently weighing on the W13's performance, and on the confidence of Mercedes' drivers.
"The biggest thing for me at the moment is just still the bouncing," said the Briton.
"I've been trying all sorts of things to be on the limit of the bouncing, and then it's costing me a lot of speed through the high-speed corners. And that's where I lose all my lap time.
"I don't have the confidence to attack with the bouncing. And you know, it's such a unique feeling from within the car, and when the car is going up and down, up and down, you cannot throw it into these high-speed corners.
"So it's tricky to find the right compromise."
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