George Russell was pleased with his performance despite finishing at the back with Williams in Australian GP qualifying.

The Formula 2 champion blew away teammate Robert Kubica by 1.7s as the Pole's session ended with a puncture after hitting the wall exiting Turn 10.

Of course, it was only good enough for 19th and still 1.3s behind Carlos Sainz in 18th but in the circumstances, it was still pretty impressive from the Briton.

“Barcelona I was probably at 99 percent but today, that was our maximum potential,” Russell said afterwards. 

“I think positively in the sense from my side and engineers was we got the maximum out of the package we’ve got. 

“I was very satisfied to be honest, and overall the car was very nice to drive. All three laps in Q1 I crossed the line with a smile on my face and felt like I got the most out of it.

"[But] obviously, overall we want more than that [P19], and obviously I want to be in the car longer than the first 18 minutes of Q1.”

Also Read:

• Russell tells Williams teammate Kubica: 'We can't fight over 19th place'
• Williams battling just to complete Australian GP weekend due to lack of spares

How long it will take for Williams to make that progress is far from certain, however, as Russell confirmed the problem was much more than just a lack of testing.

“We understand what that [the issue] is but it doesn’t mean we can wake up on Monday morning and rectify it,” he explained. 

“To change something so fundamental will take months of development and work in the simulator, the designers working out how to do it, but that’s what needs to be done at the moment.

“Unfortunately we’re looking at a number of races before we’re going to be able to fight. I think once we’ve solved that fundamental there’ll be a big leap, we’ll probably still be at the back of the grid but with a chance to fight."

While admitting the lack of competitiveness was to be "expected" deputy team boss Claire Williams admits she has been surprised by just how slow the car is.

“I don’t think we thought we were going to be as far off the pace as we are and that is going to be difficult for us to try and claw back," she told Sky Sports.

“But that’s what we do at Williams, we fight and we keep on fighting and we won’t give up until we make changes and to deliver greater performance.

“And we need to do that because we’ve got great drivers in George and Robert.”