Fernando Alonso expects the entire triple-header F1 weekend to be "painful".
After a promising and podium-filled 2023, the rapidly developing Aston Martin team is now struggling merely to get into Q3 and score meagre points.
Alonso, for instance, qualified P11 at home in Barcelona.
"This team has been in the building phase for a year and a half and I think we are now in a strong position for the future," he told Spanish journalists. "So I am very calm, but the present is what matters in racing and the present is today, the present is Barcelona.
"It is painful now, but I am calm. This circuit shows you the level of your car, because it is quite complete in terms of layout. And this is the real level of Aston, and what the level will be in the next races.
"For here, it’s as I said, and in Austria and Silverstone too. Then in Hungary, I hope that a new world championship can start for us," said the Spaniard.
Any talk of more podiums, however, will have to wait for now.
"We have to think big, but talking now about getting a podium when we don’t even enter Q3 and we use three sets of tyres in Q1 seems a bit risky," said the 42-year-old.
"But we’re not even halfway through the year, and we’ve already seen McLaren and the jumps that can be made from the bottom to the top."