Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari need to push hard to improve on power

Given the massive gap to Mercedes, the only positive Hamilton can take from this session was that he managed to outqualify his teammate for a change.

Speaking after the session, the seven-time Formula 1 Champion insisted on being positive; he said: "Really pleased with the session.

"My engineers did a fantastic job to turn the car around because P1 was a tricky session with that spin. The car generally felt great. Just I think we're losing on the straights—that's a lot of time to be losing.

"We have a lot of work to do. We really have to push so hard back in Maranello to improve on power," he insisted.

The Briton revealed Ferrari were expecting Mercedes to be so dominant; he added: "It was something that I think we were conscious of last year, that we thought that Mercedes started earlier than us or the rest, which they did last time [in 2014] as well. So they have done a fantastic job, and we've got to push to be able to close that gap.

"The car feels great, and I think we can compete with them through corners, but when you are down on power, it's just the way it is," he lamented.

Ferrari started FP1 with their rotating rear wing but then opted not to use it in Sprint Qualifying.

"I don't really know why we went back on it," Hamilton said when asked why Ferrari removed the "Macarena" wing. "We rushed it to get it here, and it was not supposed to be on the cars until race four or five, or something like that.

"So they did a great job to rush it here, and we only had two of them. It was maybe a little bit premature, so we took it off. The car was still great, and we'll work to bring it back when it's ready," Hamilton concluded.

Leclerc, on the other hand, was one second off the pace of George Russell in the Mercedes and was clearly unhappy about the situation.

"Very frustrating session," the Monegasque said. "We will analyze the session and try to analyze what has gone wrong.

"In the race we should be a bit stronger than where we are," he predicted. "But Mercedes is strong. We don’t find quite the same number of lap time. I hope to come back tomorrow."

Ferrari started the Sprint Qualifying chasing Mercedes, but come SQ3, McLaren managed to pass them as Lando Norris was third fastest.

The Scuderia's team principal, Fred Vasseur commented: "We need to look at the data. We did not have the same development than the lap before. Let's see what is happening after analyzing the data." (Source: Sky Sports F1; Additional reporting by Agnes Carlier)