Ferrari test driver and ambassador Marc Gene admits the Italian team is currently not in the running to win grands prix.
Charles Leclerc won in Monaco from pole, but the latest car upgrades appeared to then struggle on the subsequent circuits in Canada, Barcelona and now Austria.
Leclerc could not even complete his final run in sprint qualifying, leaving him P10 on the grid for Saturday’s short race.
"They were all going so slowly that the anti-stall came on," Gene, a former F1 driver, told the Spanish broadcaster DAZN at the Red Bull Ring.
Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz qualified P5, half a second behind Max Verstappen’s pole time.
"The potential is there," Gene insists, "but we have to optimise the package and make it work really well.
"We see improvements, but we have not managed to make them constant in all the laps and in all the types of corners.
"And as these races are all back-to-back, we don’t have time to work on this package, which has potential that we haven’t seen on the track yet," the Spaniard added.
When asked if a surprise win might still be on the cards, 50-year-old Gene concluded: "These are moments right now to get the maximum points we can, because fighting for victories as happened in Monaco is something that is not within reach for our car at the moment."