The state of Ferrari is such that their team boss Mattia Binotto and sporting director Laurent Mekies share the arduous task of disseminating bad news for the Tifosi at the end of each day during a Grand Prix weekend.

After another woeful qualifying, this time in Russia, in which Sebastian Vettel crashed while trying too hard and Charles Leclerc did not set the world alight with his P11 effort – last year he was on pole at the same venue, four-tenths of a second faster than Lewis Hamilton with Seb third on that grid.

A year down the road and the Reds are unrecognisable, imprisoned in the midfield with what is expected to be a long-term sentence.

After qualifying, Mekies was tasked to be the bearer of bad news and reported after another miserable day, “We’re unhappy about qualifying for various reasons. Sebastian crashed, fortunately emerging unscathed, but the impact with the barrier did considerable damage to the car, which will require a lot of work by the mechanics to repair it.

Hamilton’s pole-winning effort of 1:31.204 was 1.8 seconds faster than the best Charles could muster out of the increasingly ineffective, and decidedly embarrassing, Ferrari SF1000.

Seb is expected to start from 15th, however, the extent of the repairs to his damaged car will determine if he will face grid penalties on Sunday in Sochi.

Times are hard at Maranello.