Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur says the Scuderia's SF-23 has "mega room for improvement", with the car's first updates appearing this weekend in Jeddah.
The Italian outfit's new-spec car was outpaced in Bahrain in qualifying and even more significantly on race day by Red Bull.
Charles Leclerc was running a distant third behind Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez when an engine electronic problem forced the Monegasque into retirement. But beyond the latter's reliability issue, the raw speed of Ferrari's package was no match for Red Bull's dominant RB19.
In a call with the media ahead of this weekend's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Vasseur addressed the pace of Ferrari's car at Sakhir, insisting its package had "mega room" for improvement while admitting that it's set-up also required to be optimized.
"We struggled a bit with the balance over the weekend, it means that we have mega room for improvements on this path with our package," the Scuderia boss explained, quoted by Motorsport.com.
"With what we had in Bahrain, I think we had a lot of room for improvement in terms of driveability.
"The most important is to stay focus on the current situation to try to get the best from what we have today. And even if we are bringing updates and we will improve the situation and the competitiveness of the package.
"Keep in mind that Bahrain is not always very representative. And second, we are still at the early stage of the car.
"It means that we did three days of testing and the race in Bahrain, only on one track, and we need to have a better understanding of the car itself to try to get the best from the package we have."
In Bahrain, Carlos Sainz finished fourth, well adrift of both Red Bulls but also behind the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso which has emerged as an unexpected top-three front runner in the field.
After the race, the Spaniard pointed to heavy tyre degradation on his SF-23 as a major issue, insisting the problem was no better than the excessive wear suffered by Ferrari last season.
But Vasseur reckoned that the level of degradation on Sainz's car in the season-opening race had been a Bahrain-specific weakness, although the Spaniard's efforts to fend off Alonso in the latter part of the race had also impacted his car's tyre wear.
"Part of the explanation is coming from Bahrain, because it's very aggressive and probably this is increasing all the parameters," Vasseur said.
"And it's true also that if you have lack of pace, you have to push more to stay into the maximum of your pace and you are damaging more everything.
"It means that I would be much more focused on the pure performance and pure potential than something else."
Vasseur believes that Jeddah's less abrasive track surface and characteristics coupled with the team's updates should put Ferrari in a batter position this weekend relative to its rivals.
"For sure we can't be satisfied with the situation, and I want to do a step forward," he added.
"The characteristics of Jeddah are completely different compared to the previous one to Bahrain in terms of grip, in terms of rugosity, layout of the track and so that it's completely different story.
"Already it will suit a little bit more to what we have today. And then we'll also bring some updates to Jeddah and I hope that we'll do a step forward.
"We had a clear analysis of what we did in Bahrain. For sure we have a long list of things that we have to improve.
"I hope that already in Jeddah we'll be able to have a first reaction."
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