Lewis Hamilton revealed that he faced a "big struggle" with his Ferrari during the first two practice sessions at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Hamilton finished fifth and sixth across both sessions on Friday, while team-mate Charles Leclerc took third in both behind McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
The seven-time world champion finished 0.306secs slower than Leclerc and appeared to struggle with rear-end stability on the evidence of several oversteer snaps.
Hamilton so often thrives in the conditions at the Hungaroring, having achieved more victories (eight) than any other driver at the circuit in the history of Formula One.
He has also produced more pole positions (nine), more podiums (12) and more points (286) than any other driver in the competition in Hungary.
But he is still continuing to get to grips with his new surroundings, having taken 109 points from his first 13 races with the Scuderia, despite failing to finish in the top three.
Indeed, only Louis Rosier (15) and Ivan Capelli (14) have competed in more races than Hamilton with Ferrari without ever reaching the podium in F1.
And Hamilton conceded that he would struggle to challenge a place in the top three despite Leclerc's early promise ahead of Saturday's qualifying.
"Today was not a good day for me. Big, big struggle with the balance of the car. A lot different to the previous years I've been here," he said. "We tried two different things.
"We tried rectifying some of the balance problems we had in P1, we changed the car in P2, and it's just very, very inconsistent balance from corner to corner.
"You can't say it's understeer, you can't just say it's oversteer, it's just far from being on rails and very out of balance.
"But I think it's probably something to do with maybe tyre temperatures, so we're going to try to figure that out for tomorrow.
"I mean Charles has been quick today. He's been generally happy with the car. For me, I'm quite far off, so I highly doubt (I can challenge for the second row)."
