Kvyat had progressed out of Q1 in all four of the season's preceding qualifying sessions, but a lap 2.235s off the pace in the first segment left him 20th in the order at the chequered flag.

He was eight tenths off teammate Carlos Sainz, who comfortably progressed to Q2 and would go on to qualify 12th.

Talking to the media after qualifying, Kvyat lamented a lack of grip and lots of "sliding" from his STR12 and was adamant that something was wrong with the car.

Asked what had gone wrong, he quipped: "Except for everything, nothing.

"I mean, the car was very hard to drive, pretty sure it was completely out of the window so we need to understand why it happened.

"I was losing time in the corners where it is hard to imagine [you can] lose time. Something is wrong but we will work hard to understand what."

He added: "The car was not driven by me today, it was driving on its own."

Kvyat had struggled to match teammate Sainz's pace through Friday practice, and while he was likewise slower in FP3, he said his car had improved – only to become less competitive again heading into qualifying.

"The things seemed to be a bit better today in the morning but then in qualifying it went back again to where it was yesterday. We need to analyse why it did like that because I never really got to a happy window with the car.

"Since the beginning [of qualifying], it was clear that it was going to be a very tough session.

"I'm encouraging everyone to jump on top of the things because the car is not doing what I want and when the car is not doing what I want, I cannot drive it."

Sainz "couldn't have done more"

Teammate Sainz admitted Toro Rosso had anticipated it would be more competitive in Barcelona – a track that has so far yielded both his career-best grid position and a joint-best race finish in F1.

"I think we all expected a bit more from this weekend, particularly at a track where we performed really well in the past," Sainz said.

"P5 in qualy two years ago, P8 last year - today P12, so obviously we expected a bit more than this."

While he was within the top 10 in all three practice sessions and Q1, the Spaniard told his team that 12th was "the maximum" after he was eliminated in Q2 – and stood by that statement later on.

"I said that because I meant it. When you do two laps that are exactly the same - [1m]21.3[s], 21.3 - there is little you can do to extract more from it. I did exactly two copy-paste laps.

"I couldn't have done more. And when you put things into perspective and when you see where my teammate is and everything, it means there is not much more in the car at the moment."

Additional reporting by Oleg Karpov