George Russell admits he and Williams are at a loss over where their pace has gone after qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.

The Briton saw a run of four straight Q2 appearances end after only managing a lowly 18th on the grid for Sunday's race in Barcelona, albeit still four-tenths faster than teammate Nicholas Latifi.

However, the result wasn't much of a surprise for Russell, who was surprisingly quite satisfied with his pace.

"Yea, definitely, I was pretty pleased with the qualifying session," he admitted.

"I think in practice we were the slowest car by quite some way, so I was pleased with our performance step.

"But nevertheless we need to understand where our Saturday performance has gone because, on paper, it (this track) should have suited our car a little bit more but it's turned out to be the complete opposite."

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Asked if the dip was a result of Williams trying to improve their race pace, which has been their weakness this season, Russell was frank.

"I'd like to say it is but it isn't, to be honest," he admitted. "We're just a little bit lost this weekend, where that pace has gone.

"It's really hot here, the tyres are really difficult to get in the window. I think we did a good job on the second set in qualifying, but then it just went away from us."