After weeks of speculation, Ferrari technical director Pat Fry has admitted that the team is disappointed with its pre-season form, revealing that the Maranello outfit will be hard pushed to be battling for a podium result in Melbourne.

From the outset, the team has insisted that times posted in testing are not important, and while many would wholeheartedly agree, it has been the lack of obvious pace, not to mention the continued denials that have left many worried.

To further cloud the issue, in an unusual move, the Italian team has not held any driver briefings with the media in Barcelona this week, a move widely cited as a PR disaster.

Now, confirming the bad news the tifosi has dreaded, it has been left to Fry to admit that all is not well.

"In the hunt for the podium in Melbourne? At the moment I'd say no," admits the Englishman. "We are disappointed with the performance level seen at these tests and I think we have a lot of work ahead of us. Clearly the decision relating to the exhausts that we took last week meant we took a few steps backwards in terms of development.

"How much? Difficult to say right now. In testing, you can only make assumptions regarding what fuel loads the other cars are running and it will only be in Melbourne that we will get a clear answer as to whether we have to be very disappointed or just a little, how far we really are off the front runners and consequently how much ground we have to make up to get there.

"We must improve in general the level of aerodynamic downforce on the car," he continued, "but we are well aware that the pace of development is more or less the same for everyone. We will have a few updates for Melbourne, basically aimed at readapting the car to the exhaust configuration we have chosen to run for at least the first four races of the season."

"We have been working on the current configuration for really just two weeks," he continued, referring to the exhausts on the F2012, one of the most commonly discussed points in the paddock. "We found a bit of performance but there's no doubt that the original solution is the one that gives the most.

"I think we can claw back, at best, at least 25% of the downforce we had last year, even if we need to see what that costs us in fuel consumption and corner turn-in stability. At the moment it's still causing us problems, but it's the most obvious way to try and improve performance and increase aerodynamic downforce. We will continue to work on it, as indeed will all the others. The Mugello test will be useful to try new parts, because it is always difficult to introduce major developments during a race weekend, but today, we can't say if we will have something worthwhile or less so and all the others will be doing the same. The Red Bull exhausts? I think that's a question for Charlie Whiting."

Asked if he thought qualifying could throw up some surprises, Fry said: "I think we can indeed expect a different scenario to the recent past, with the performance differences reduced so that maybe you won't be able to count on making the cut out of Q1 with a calm lap on hard tyres and the same could be said for Q2: we will get the answer in Australia."