Seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton said he would not miss his Mercedes once the Formula One season was done and described Saturday's Belgian Grand Prix qualifying as a kick in the teeth after hoping for so much more.
Hamilton has yet to win in 13 races this year, the worst streak of his career, but arrived at Spa with an expectation of being closer to front-runners Red Bull and Ferrari.
Instead Red Bull's championship leader Max Verstappen has been dominant.
Hamilton will start Sunday's race in fourth place after grid penalties for others including Verstappen but with little to celebrate after a lap that was nearly 1.8 seconds slower than the Dutchman's fastest.
"Everyone's working for improvements, we came here very, very optimistic that we were going to be able to be close, half a second, who knows?," the Briton told Sky Sports television.
"To be 1.8 seconds behind, it's a real kick in the teeth."
Hamilton said the car felt like it had a parachute behind it on the straights and was also aerodynamically unstable in corners.
"It's a car that we continue to struggle with and I definitely won't miss it at the end of the year. For me it's just about focusing on how we build and design next year's car," he added.
"The other two teams ahead of us are in another league but our car looks so much different to theirs. So we've got a lot of work to do, we'll do the best we can with what we have for the rest of the season."
Team boss Toto Wolff told reporters that there was "something which we totally don't understand" about a car that George Russell put on pole position at the previous race in Hungary.
"It's for me the worst qualifying session that I have in 10 years in my time (in Mercedes) and irrespective of what positions we're going to start tomorrow," added the Austrian.
"Being on pole (in Hungary) and three weeks later being nowhere is just not acceptable."