Reigning constructors' champions Ferrari were searching for a quick fix after both cars finished outside the points at the rain-shortened Malaysian Grand Prix, a week after a similar scoreless weekend in Australia.
A tropical storm over the Sepang circuit brought an abrupt end to the second race of the season and while Brawn GP's Jenson Button was able to celebrate a second consecutive victory,
Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen were never a factor, with Brazilian Massa finishing five places ahead of his team mate in ninth.
After an error of judgment ruined his qualifying session on Saturday, Massa believes the Italian outfit must rebuild from scratch ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai in a fortnight.
"It was a bad result and we need to start again from zero," said Massa.
"We need to get together to understand where we can improve things. To clear up our mistakes and fine-tune our strategies.
"We (have not gone from being) great in the past to suddenly stupid now, although last year we had a better car. But we have to work quickly to get this season back on track."
Team principal Stefano Domenicali echoed his driver's concerns and after both cars failed to finish in the season-opening race in Melbourne, he stressed the need for a positive reaction.
"It was the second bad weekend in a row and we have to react really immediately to this," the Italian said.
"Things are not going well and our performance is not acceptable and I will not accept it. We need to make sure we resolve any technical issues with the car and also cut down on the mistakes we are making with our strategies."
Under pressure from Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, Domenicali explained the team needed results to improve by the next grand prix on April 19.
"From a performance point of view, we have to work on the aerodynamics of the car... the downforce," he added.
"We need to work day and night to make this better and we also need to see why the car is so competitive in practice at the start of a race weekend but struggles in qualifying and on raceday.
"The car is very sensitive to fuel load and tyres right now, something we need to fix as it should not be this way."
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