Sebastian Vettel expected more progress from Ferrari at the British Grand Prix, but is hoping Silverstone was just a blip rather than the start of a trend in the team's performance.
Vettel finished third in Sunday's race, but the podium was earned thanks to a well-timed pit stop rather than outright pace. Prior to the switch to intermediate tyres, Vettel and Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen had been slower than the Williams and Mercedes cars ahead and only managed to qualify fifth and sixth on the grid on Saturday.
"We expected to be stronger," Vettel said. "I think we were surprised by the pace of Williams on Saturday in qualifying and also on Sunday. I think you could also see it was not a good weekend from ourselves because the gap simply to the top was larger than at previous events.
"I don't think that we did a step back, but I think we just couldn't find the right direction this weekend and obviously if you're not P1, P2 it's quite tight between us, Williams and the Red Bulls, who were very quick this weekend. I think they'd taken a step forward and that's what happens."
Ferrari had a revised front wing and brake ducts on the car in Silverstone, but still appeared to lose ground compared to its opposition. Nevertheless, Ferrari boss Maurizio Arrivabene is confident his team is not losing its way as the season progresses.
"We have normal development on the car, and as I said many many times, the development is going all through the year," he said. "It's not something that we put on the car all together, the methodology is important. So instead of putting 10,000 things on the car all together you put certain things on. That way you can measure if they are working well, if it's a step forward, otherwise you lose it.
"If you look at Barcelona it was more or less the same story [as Silverstone], but I'm not finding any excuses. We are going to have tracks that are in our favour and tracks where we are struggling, the reality is that I would like our people to be concentrated on the weaknesses rather than looking at the strengths."