Team boss Fred Vasseur's admission to his growing frustration paints a grim picture for the Maranello legends.

As pointed out elsewhere, Ferrari is currently third in the standings with 298 points, just ahead of Red Bull which has 290. Of those 290 Max Verstappen has scored 273.

Singapore, where the scarlet cars have fared well over the years, was another weekend that promised much but delivered little, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton essentially enjoying the scraps left by McLaren, Mercedes and the Dutchman.

"What is mega frustrating is that the last two weekends in Baku and then Singapore, at the beginning of the weekend, the pace was there," said Vasseur.

While Hamilton's brake issue dominated in the closing laps, Leclerc had suffered a similar issue almost from the start.

"Very early in the race we asked Charles to do a lift and coast," revealed Vasseur. "It's not just a matter of doing a lift and coast when you're losing a little bit at the end of the straight," he added, "it's also to find the right braking point.

"In all the races that we were a bit more, a bit less, a bit more, a bit less, a bit more on the rear, a bit more on the front. You had to change the brake balance," he sighed.

"At the end, you lose probably more on the reference for you when you are driving the car than on the pure potential."

Even Hamilton's late fastest lap was of no consolation to the Frenchman.

"It's a fake fastest lap for me," he insisted. "We are not in the same situation. What I can say is that when he was pushing, the pace was there. The gap with the cars in front of him was coherent with the delta that you have on the tyres. But nothing more than this.

"It's also frustrating for us," he continued, "because we had the feeling that when we did three laps in a row without saving, that the pace was not bad.

"We didn't extract the best from the car, I think, honestly," he admitted. "We are doing 29.7s in Q1 and 29.7s in Q3, but we're struggling at the end of all the races not to be at the back foot.

"For the team, it's mega frustrating. The team and drivers are for all of us, because we are not pushing because of the brakes. At the end of the day, we are putting so much effort to be there, that when you have to do all the races on the backfoot, it's not good."

"From lap eight, basically it was all about managing those brakes," concurred Leclerc. "It made our race very, very tricky.

"Unfortunately, we don't have the race car to fight with the guys in front," he admitted. "McLaren always had the same gap on us compared to the beginning of the year. Red Bull did a step from Monza and the same level of McLaren.

"Mercedes now is at the same level of McLaren and Red Bull, and then there's us, and, it's not easy, obviously, because you want to fight for better positions. But at the moment, it just feels like we are kind of passengers to the car and we cannot extract much more what's there to salvage from the rest of the season.

"I wouldn't describe it as the most difficult season," he insisted. I think every time you don't fight for wins, it's difficult, but obviously, coming from a year like last year, where you are fighting for the world champion, the Constructor Championship, and then you come here with high expectations...

"You have to lower your expectations from the beginning, and you don't even see a progression throughout the year. It's not easy."

"It takes a lot of energy, but that doesn't demotivate me," he replied when asked how difficult it is to accept the team's current position, "it motivates me, if anything, much more to try and turn the situation around.

"But it's very tough, especially after a race where you are not even fighting for a podium, you have to manage lots of issues. It's just not a nice feeling."

However, despite his numerous issues, Hamilton remains upbeat.

"I'm looking at the positives on track," he wrote on social media. "The media headlines only tell one story, one where we don't get things quite right, or things don't go our way. But what I have been focused on over the past few months is the other story. The one about how this team responds when things go wrong. How we get back up, and we go again.

"Yesterday was the perfect example," he continued. "We got the strategy right, but the brake issue set us back just when momentum was building. So now we get back in the factory, learn from this last race, and plan for the next one.

"I'm really proud of this team," he added, "and want to help deliver the results they and the tifosi deserve. I see the progress we are making, and the hard work that goes into every race, but this is Ferrari.

"Progress alone is not enough," he admitted. "To achieve greatness we need to go further, be better. There is so much we can achieve together, and if we can build on our successes, and change the things we need to, I fully believe we will get there."

While appreciating the seven-time world champion's positivity, one cannot help but feel that his words are the sort of thing we hear from politicians before an election... and you know how that usually works out.