Aston Martin knew its draggy car was always going to be on the back foot on Spa-Francorchamps' long straights, but it would never have anticipated delivering the worst qualifying result in its Formula 1 history.
Fernando Alonso's 19th in Belgian Grand Prix qualifying, with Lance Stroll one place further back, was not just the team's first double Q1 exit since the Miami GP.
It is also the first time in its F1 history that Aston Martin has (provisionally) locked out the last row of the grid - with that feat not even being achieved during its brief first underwhelming spell in grand prix racing from 1959-60.
Off the back of what had appeared to be some progress with the AMR25 over recent races, the team's Belgian GP disaster is not so straightforward to explain.
However, there are some clues about the factors that have come together to deliver it.
It is well understood that the AMR25 is not the most aerodynamically efficient F1 car on the grid, with it often lacking in straightline speed compared to its main rivals.
Furthermore, with rain potentially expected on Sunday, taking off the downforce to compensate for this was not really an option - as the team even added wing from the settings it had in the sprint.
The result was clear to see, with Stroll slowest overall in the speed trap in qualifying at 311km/h, and Alonso not much quicker.
But, as Alonso admitted, the downsides of adding extra wing do not fully explain why the laptime was not there - because Max Verstappen, who qualified fourth, was equally compromised as he managed just 312.3km/h through the speed trap with his high-downforce settings.
"We did change the set-up since this morning to accommodate a little bit [for] the rain, but it's not an excuse," explained Alonso.
"We should not be that [much] slower in dry conditions with the changes we made. I think we were half a second from the Q2 cutoff time and we were not half a second slower because of the compromises we did."
The car clearly also lacked pace in the middle sector, and this may have been a consequence of Aston Martin rolling back its floor specs - returning to the design that arrived at Imola.
While some of its new upgrade package, including its front wing, stayed on the car, it is understood whether it elected to go for the Imola floor because it was better suited for the ride-height compromises that the Eau Rouge compression delivers.
This suggests that Aston Martin is having to run the car in a configuration that is not in the perfect set-up window - and therefore does not deliver the extra downforce that its latest floor offers.
A lack of downforce would trigger the car sliding more, which would then overheat the tyres over the lap and lead to the kind of drop in pace that both Aston Martins appeared to show - especially on a warm day.
As Alonso said: "At Spa, you need to have grip in the corners but also straightline speed. It seems that we could not find the right set-up to have both of them."
This ultimately left both drivers trapped in a world where whichever route they took with downforce levels, it was going to hurt them.
Asked by The Race about what was lacking specifically, Stroll said: "Just grip in the corners and then, when we take off the wing that we need for the straightline speed, we have no grip in the corners.
"Then, when we put the wing on that we want, we have no straightline speed. So it's just that balance between straightline speed and corner grip."
Even if the rain does arrive for Sunday, it's still unlikely to save Aston Martin's weekend - which is why Alonso thought it was critical the team digs a bit deeper into what went wrong so it does not suffer like this again in the future.
"We need to go back and understand why our package isn't performing here," he said.
"Starting near the back is never easy, and this performance doesn’t reflect where we are as a team this season."
