Lewis Hamilton was downbeat about his prospects after ending Friday practice in Jeddah only 13th fastest.
“It was not the greatest,” Hamilton admitted afterwards. “Getting the tyres working today I think was the issue for my side.”
The Ferrari driver was over six tenths of a second slower than his team mate Charles Leclerc and is concerned he may fall further behind in qualifying.
“Normally Saturday goes backwards, but there’s not a lot backwards for me to go from where I am,” he told the official F1 channel. “Hopefully overnight we’ll make some improvements to the car.
“There were a few bits through the session that felt good. It’s just once we get to the soft tyre it’s not there. We’ll make changes overnight and hope tomorrow we can come back stronger.”
“Through both sessions we were trying different things across both cars, to then converge, so wing settings and all sorts,” he added. “So I’m hoping we’ll have a better understanding after we analyse tonight and I’m hoping for a better day tomorrow.”
Although Leclerc managed to put his Ferrari on the front row of the grid at the last round in Bahrain, Hamilton said he isn’t looking that far ahead. “For me I’m just trying to see if I’m getting the top 10 at the moment.”
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Leclerc was much more encouraged by Ferrari’s form and is even hoping he might be able to challenge McLaren in qualifying.
“We changed the car a lot, but it was a very positive day because I’ve learnt a lot from it,” he said. “I think once we put everything in the right window there should be a bit more performance coming out of the car.
“McLaren seems to be strong once again and a lot stronger than us but never say never, if we put everything together, I think everything is possible.”
“We’ve done a good job by exploring different options and it’s pretty clear in my head what I want to do for tomorrow,” he added. “So we are going to go in that direction and I hope that it will pay off once we get to quali.”
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