Max Verstappen said on Friday he struggled with tyre grip in second practice for the Australian Grand Prix after finishing a lowly seventh, but was heartened by the pace of his Red Bull.
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The four-time world champion was more than half a second slower than pace-setter Charles Leclerc and completed 10 fewer laps than the Ferrari star at Albert Park.
He flirted with the gravel on occasion and said the set-up was not quite right ahead of the season-opening race of the season in Melbourne.
"Today the grip wasn't great and we were struggling on all four tyres, particularly in sector one and in the final sector," he said.
"It feels like we are not up there at the moment but we will work to find more pace.
"There are no major balance issues, so I think this makes things a bit harder to fix. But this isn't anything that we didn't expect when we arrived here."
The Dutchman claimed his fourth straight world title with two races to spare last year and is now bidding to join only Michael Schumacher by winning five in a row.
Despite the grip issues he saw some positives on day one.
"Positively, I think we were surprised with the pace that the car showed," he said.
"Historically we have not been that good here in Melbourne since the new tarmac update so will see how we go over the weekend.
"However, we will continue to work to find a bit more pace ahead of qualifying."
His new teammate Liam Lawson, who took over from the axed Sergio Perez, fared even worse, slumping to 17th in a wake-up call for the New Zealander.
"I felt comfortable in the car today but it just wasn’t fast enough, so we have a lot of work to do overnight," he said.
"Day one on a new track you are expecting to have work to do, but not this much.
"We can't really pinpoint why it's been tricky out there so far – if we knew, we could fix it a lot quicker."