Ferrari boss admits Silverstone form not good enough

The Maranello team had high hopes for the weekend, but it was clear from the start that it did not have the pace to match Mercedes or even Williams.

Vettel qualified in sixth, behind teammate Kimi Raikkonen, and was out of contention before the rain hit the circuit.

Arrivabene said the cars simply were not quick enough in normal conditions.

"I think it's half empty," Arrivabene said. "Because we were doing a very good job in terms of strategy, the rain was helping us, but if the race was dry instead of being wet the result would have been completely different.

"If we want to be serious we need to start from there and to work on the problems that we have.

"We have to discuss it in house, but we were quite slow on the straights without gaining anything on the high-speed curves. This is the problem."

Arrivabene downplayed suggestions that upgrades for Silverstone had not paid off, however.

"We have normal developments on the car. As I said many times, and I reconfirm one more time, the development is going through all the year, it's not something that we put on the car all together.

"The upgrades that we have here they are like the little ones that we had in Austria, and the ones that are coming for Hungary.

"Methodology is important to do a good job, so instead of putting 10,000 things altogether into the car you put certain things, you measure, if they are working well, you go a step forward. Otherwise you get lost."

He expects certain venues to continue to help or hinder the team.

"If you look at Barcelona, Barcelona was more or less the same story. I'm not finding any excuses, because this is something that I said the last time I think in Austria, we are going to have tracks that in our favour, other tracks where we are struggling.

"The reality is that I would like our people to be concentrated on the weaknesses, instead of looking on the strengths."