Charles Leclerc admits to being left totally bewildered by the erratic performance of the Ferrari.

Following his struggles on Saturday, when the youngster failed to make it beyond Q1, Ferrari worked overnight, changing the whole rear end of his car in a bid to improve the situation..

The youngster had described that cars handling on Saturday as "weird" and "undriveable" and despite the changes this continued into Sunday.

Starting from the pitlane as a result of the changes made to the car, Leclerc who started on hards, pitted on Lap 16 while running ninth, his progress through the field more about rivals pitting earlier than the performance of the SF23.

By the time he made his second stop he was up to 8th, rejoining in 14th, making his way back to 12th by race end but subsequently benefitting from the penalty handed to Yuki Tsunoda.

Asked, all things considered, if 11th was a fair reflection on the weekend, and the best he could realistically hope for, he replied: "No... I don't understand what we are doing wrong but we are doing something wrong and the tyres are... I went from a first hard to a second hard in the last stint, did exactly the same thing and the car is behaving in a completely different way.

"We have to obviously understand and work," he continued, "we really need to now because it's been a few races and we are struggling with the conditions or having a very peaky car and today was no better.

"It was so bad," he sighed. "Like, no grip at all, especially from the front. The limitations were completely different to qualifying.

"Today we were more expecting this, but then for some reason, the second set, I do exactly the same and it feels really good.

"We seem to never really get in the right window of the tyre," he admitted. "When we do, it's a bit of a surprise to us."

"I put in even harder work today," added teammate Carlos Sainz, who ended the day 5th, having started from the front row. "It's just that it doesn't show and unfortunately this is how our situation... it's exactly what I was talking about yesterday. We know race pace and high-speed corners is our main weakness and unfortunately Barcelona has a high degradation tyre mark, a high degradation configuration and a lot of high-speed corners which is our main weakness so that's why today we were struggling so much out there.

"Also with the predictability of the car, we were just... I did everything I could. I did the most optimal driving and stints that I could do but unfortunately P5 was the best that we could achieve."

However, unlike his teammate, the Spaniard believes that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

"We've identified our weaknesses and we exactly know where we are lacking and the feedback is there and the intention is there," he said, "we just need time, we need to keep trying, to keep bringing things to improve the package and yeah... Mercedes today proved that they've done a good step and it's a good reference.

"So we're going to try our best, I see the team united, I see the team pushing flat-out in Maranello, we possibly just put the upgrade in the worst possible circuit for us so that doesn't help."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Barcelona here.