Ferrari thinks its terrible Qatar Grand Prix went well beyond a lack of development having pulled it back towards improved midfield Formula 1 rivals.
Instead, boss Fred Vasseur suspects its woes on the Lusail track, which included both cars finishing well outside the points in the sprint, were related to set-up complications triggered by unusually high tyre pressures.
Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton endured a weekend that they would rather forget in Qatar as neither was able to challenge anywhere near the front.
After his 13th in the sprint, Leclerc had a tough time just getting a few points for eighth in the main race.
"I had no confidence in the car, had no pace in the car, and had nothing in the car," he lamented afterwards. "I'm quite glad the weekend is over, to be honest."
Hamilton had an even worse time as he endured Q1 exits in both the sprint and main grand prix then finished 17th and 12th in the races.
Ferrari's struggles have come off the back of the team openly admitting that a decision to switch off aero upgrades on its SF-25 had opened the door for other teams to overtake them.
The lack of development is something that Hamilton highlighted, as he finished the race sandwiched between Alex Albon's Williams and Gabriel Bortoleto's Sauber.
"I think it really highlighted just how developed everybody else is and how undeveloped we are at this point of the year," he said.
"I was near getting overtaken by the Stake [Sauber] car and I couldn't keep up with the Williams."
But the Qatar weekend was so bad, and actually went against the grain of recent stronger weekends for the team, that Ferrari thinks some other elements were at play.
Key to this was the raised tyre pressures that Pirelli imposed for the Qatar Grand Prix in a bid to ensure the tyres were resistant to the high forces encountered at the Lusail track.
Ahead of the Qatar weekend, the tyre pressures were set at a minimum of 28psi for the front and 23.5psi for the rear. The pressures were then raised across both axles by 1psi more from Saturday.
As a comparison, a more typical racetrack such as Interlagos in Brazil has front tyre pressures set at a minimum of 25psi – so much lower.
For a team like Ferrari whose car is super sensitive to ride height, and has faced difficult moments like in Hungary when higher pressures have been used after tyre changes in the race in a bid to protect the plank, this would appear to be enough to put its car out of a good balance window.
"We struggled to deal with it," said Vasseur: "It was the same for everybody. It's just that we did a worse job than the others.
"If you are out of the window, for sure you lose tonnes of positions.
"On a track like this where you have zero deg[radation], it's not easy to overtake with the layout of the track, zero deg. And on the top you impose a two-stop. Forget about it."
Vasseur thinks the fact that Ferrari has been competitive in some recent races, such as Mexico and Brazil, suggests that the lack of development is not the trigger for why things were so bad this time.
However, he thinks that the team cannot be complacent and expect to end its challenging 2025 campaign on a good footing if it does not nail its set-up in Abu Dhabi.
Leclerc felt that it was critical Ferrari did not repeat its Qatar form in Abu Dhabi, as he reckoned this would leave a depressing feeling heading into the winter.
"I'm hoping to give us a little bit more happiness to go on holidays, because it will be quite depressing to go after two weekends, just like this weekend," he said. "I mean, that will be very bad. So I hope we can have a better weekend."
