Ferrari held the belief that they had a pace advantage over their rivals heading into the opening race of the 2019 Formula 1 season, but experienced a "cold shower" when the opposite was true according to team boss Mattia Binotto.
Ferrari were favourites after pre-season testing with the SF90 topping the times and generally impressing, but Mercedes responded after the first test with a major upgrade package which was further tweaked for the first race.
Valtteri Bottas went on to qualify on pole by seven-tenths to Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel in third and that's when it became apparent that their pre-season pace wasn't what they thought it was.
"We were certainly quick the first week [of testing]," Binotto told Autosport. "We thought we had a clear performance advantage on all the competitors to say the truth, that more or less in the first week we were half a second faster over other teams.
"If we look at the overall best lap time of the second week, when everybody was trying lower fuel configurations and was starting pushing on the engine mode, we did exactly the same laptime of [Lewis] Hamilton.
"[So] going to Australia we had a good level of confidence that we could battle for the victory. But once there it was a cold shower for the entire team."
Binotto is still keen to take the positives away from the year after Ferrari hit back after the summer break to dominate in qualifying and claim three race wins.
"The team had the right spirit," he added. "I believe that in the second half of the season we addressed positively the problems we had.
"This shows that the team is capable of developing and moving in the right direction."
Ferrari went on to finish second to Mercedes in the standings, but with a huge 235-point deficit as the Silver Arrows claimed 15 wins.
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