MONTREAL, June 9 - Ferrari go into Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix hoping for the best but fearing the worst after what team boss Jean Todt called their poorest qualifying performance of the season so far.

Finland's Kimi Raikkonen will start fourth on the grid with Brazilian team-mate Felipe Massa one place behind after championship leaders McLaren secured the top two slots on Saturday.

"This was a very disappointing qualifying session for us, the worst of the season as we were no match for our main rivals," said Todt.

"Of course, the points only get given out in the race and tomorrow the key factors will be the usual ones --- strategy, reliability, performance and team work, but the overall picture after today is not a favourable one and I hope that changes for the race," he added.

Already five points behind McLaren's joint leaders, double champion Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, Massa tried to keep his hopes up.

"For sure it was not a fantastic qualifying from us," said Massa. "Hopefully we can change some things for tomorrow and hopefully we can have a better result tomorrow in the race, definitely today McLaren was quicker than us.

"We will see the strategy they have and we will try and have a good strategy for tomorrow as well," added the Brazilian, winner of two races this season but still five points off the lead.

Raikkonen, in his first season with Ferrari after joining from McLaren as Michael Schumacher's replacement, is 15 points behind his former squad's current duo. He highlighted the different conditions between qualifying and racing.

"Of course I would have preferred to have been further forward on the starting grid but we know we have a competitive car when running at race pace," he said.

"As far as today's result is concerned there is always the unknown factor concerning the fuel levels (in qualifying)," added the Finn.