Carlos Sainz endured a difficult opening day at Zandvoort, the Ferrari driver watching FP1 from the sidelines and then clocking in a lowly P16 in Friday's second practice.
Sainz's absence from FP1 was scheduled as Ferrari reserve Robert Shwartzman was handed a practice session as part of F1's 'young driver' rules.
The Spaniard took to the track in the afternoon with the hope of putting himself and his team in the mix, but a massive lack of downforce, while it powered the Scuderia's SF-23 like a rocket down the straight, left the car with little to no grip around the corners.
Ferrari had mounted a larger, Hungaroring-spec rear wing on its contender, but the change did not play out as expected, although Sainz was only half surprised by the team's underperformance.
"Unfortunately, we don't look very competitive yet," he told F1TV after the session. "We're going to need to find some lap time, some downforce, some balance because today was a tough day for the team.
"I think we saw something similar in Hungary where we go to higher downforce tracks, for some reason we don't pick up as much downforce maybe as the others when we go to the bigger rear wings.
"A bit of homework to do on our side [to understand] why we slide more than the others.
"If we want to be fighting for a podium [in qualifying] and on Sunday, it needs a very big jump in performance."
©Ferrari
Sainz feared that if this weekend's performance is anything like Hungary, then he might be hard-pressed once again to make Saturday's top-ten shootout in qualifying.
"There's a margin for improvement but when you look back at Hungary, we were fighting to get into Q3," he recalled. "It could be something similar this weekend, especially with how tight the field is."
Charles Leclerc clocked in P16 in FP1 and improved to P11 later in the afternoon. But the Monegasque echoed his teammate's sentiment and called on his team to make overnight gains.
"We've had quite a few difficulties," he said. "FP2 went in the right direction but we still need to do a step forward for tomorrow.
"The feeling wasn't great, there's a big margin to improve but now we need to do the step forward and find what was wrong for tomorrow."
©Ferrari
Leclerc suggested that tomorrow's work in FP3 will focus on small changes and putting Ferrari's car "in the right window".
"I think it's fine-tuning because already from FP1 to FP2, we did some small changes and it went in the right direction," he said.
"So, we need to do the same for tomorrow. Now it's all about trying to put the car in the right window, which we don't have yet.
"But I have a very clear idea of what I want from the car. Then we need to find the right set-ups to go around our issues. I'm confident. Normally we are quite good at that.
"We just need to do a step forward… We are not maximising our package at the moment."
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