Lewis Hamilton issued a grovelling apology to his Ferrari team-mates after qualifying ninth for the Bahrain Grand Prix. The British driver's Saturday struggles have transferred from Mercedes to his new team.

The seven-time world champion demonstrated some promise earlier in qualifying and was even second-fastest at the end of Q1. However, he scraped through the cut-off to make it into Q3 before scoring a ninth-place starting grid slot for Sunday's Grand Prix.

On his way back around the Sakhir International Circuit before parking up in Parc Ferme, Hamilton dialled into the team radio to tell race engineer Riccardo Adami: "Sorry, guys. I... I'm really sorry, man... really sorry."

After climbing out of his SF-25 machine, Hamilton's mood didn't improve much. "I'm not doing a good enough job on my side, just got to keep improving," he said when quizzed about his tough qualifying session.

Probed over his target for Sunday's Grand Prix, Hamilton replied: "Hopefully top five. I'll try and see if I can get it to top five, we'll see." The Brit didn't know where things went wrong, either. "I really don't know," he continued. "I don't have a lot of answers for you guys. Just wasn't good today."

This has not been the start to life at Ferrari that Hamilton had hoped for. Aside from the standout moment, his victory in the Shanghai sprint race, the seven-time world champion has been chasing the rear of team-mate Charles Leclerc in both qualifying and race pace.

While Hamilton was left disappointed in Sakhir, his team-mate had plenty to celebrate. Leclerc will line up third on the grid behind polesitter Oscar Piastri and Mercedes' George Russell.

"Honestly, I didn't expect P3," the Monegasque racer confessed. "I knew that in Q3 there was some lap time. I knew that in Q1 and Q2 I just had to be patient and wait for the track to come to us. It was a bit tricky because at the beginning of Q3 everything felt really bad with the old tyres but then as soon as we put on the new tyres it was quite a bit better.

"I'm happy. I did not expect it but I think it's a result of... we explored quite a lot of extreme setups in the last few weekends, and it feels like I've found my way a little bit. And little by little, I hope there will be more performance to extract from the car in the weekends to come."