Jenson Button is fearing the worst ahead of Saturday's qualifying session for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Briton is not alone either as McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes' Michael Schumacher are also concerned about their respective lack of pace.
McLaren had expected the Hungaroring to play more to their strengths given its tight, twisty nature, but on the evidence of Friday's practice sessions, that was far from the case.
The World Champion trio could not even suggest that fuel loads or tyres played a part as they languished behind the lightning quick Sebastian Vettel in his Red Bull.
In chasing his seventh pole of the season and fourth in a row, the 23-year-old German finished half a second faster than any of his rivals.
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was his nearest challenger, with Hamilton a distant 1.2secs adrift, and Button and Schumacher 1.6secs off the pace in sixth, ninth and 10th positions respectively.
A downbeat Button said: "Qualifying is going to be very tricky.
"The Red Bull is just so fast. They did a one minute 20 (seconds), and we didn't get near the low one minute 21s, so I don't know where that time is.
"I feel reasonably happy with the balance of the car, and although there's still more to improve, we're never going to find a second.
"The guys are all working flat-out to improve this car, as we need to at the moment, and I've got belief in them.
"If we can get into the top five in qualifying we should be very happy with that."
Hamilton, twice a winner of this race in his three visits, claimed his car on Friday was the best it had felt at this track, yet dejectedly added: "That's still not good enough.
"It feels great around the corners, and then you start to push more to try and close the gap to these guys, but the car starts to be really on the ragged edge.
"We're massively down in the middle sector, almost a second, and then a couple of tenths in the first and last sectors.
"We are pushing, and we're doing the best we can. With the package we have, we're getting the optimum from it.
"We're just trying to dial-in the set-up, but there's only maybe a couple of tenths in it, so we've a lot of work to do.
"I guess this weekend's just about scoring as many points as we can and hoping the guys ahead have troubles.
"We'll just try and edge out as much as we can. I think being in the top five could be tricky this weekend."
Schumacher, who has endured a miserable season so far, does not envisage his form improving this weekend.
"Unfortunately our car does not look very good here at the moment," said a despondent Schumacher.
"We have to look deeply into the data now to see if there are any specific reasons or if it is due to the character of the circuit.
"Our specification is better than we had at Silverstone, but we have to make it suit this track. We obviously hope for a better performance today and tomorrow."
