Stroll: Shocking how big of a step backwards we made

In each session, Stroll was over three seconds off the top times. He was also half a second shy of his rookie teammate Sergey Sirotkin in the morning session, then 1.8 seconds down on the Russian in the afternoon stanza.

Stroll said at the end of the first day in Shanghai, "There are a lot of things to sort out - our straight-line speed, our handling. Everything needs work."

"In Bahrain, it was shocking how big of a step backwards we made. I was four tenths slower than I was last year."

"We were losing time on the straights. We haven't improved. We improved a little bit in the corners, but not even close to the extent we were hoping for."

"But then in Australia, we improved the lap time a little bit compared to last year when Felipe [Massa] was in Q3."

"All in all, we haven't improved our package. We are giving up in areas that we were strong in last year and we haven't improved to the extent we wanted to in the areas we were aiming to improve."

It is not the first time Stroll has aired his grievances with regards to the car penned by former Ferrari designer Dirk de Beer also the first car built under Paddy Lowe's watch.

But the young Canadian has not given up all hope yet, "It's all a bit up and down, but it's very early days. There are still 19 races to go, and there's a lot more to understand and to look at before we come to a conclusion."

"Overall, it's not where we want to be. But we have identified a lot of problems and hopefully, we have a good idea of how to improve the car and how to make big steps in the right direction," added Stroll.

Inevitably the one mighty team is now beleaguered and copping flak on social media: