Unlike in practice where, Russell was a dominant 0.7 seconds ahead of the field, he edged out nearest rival Alexander Albon by just 0.076s in qualifying.

Antonio Fuoco ran off-sync as the other drivers pitted with under 15 minutes to go, and he put the Charouz car onto pole with a time 0.3s quicker than Russell. 

But in the later runs, Russell pulled off a brilliant flier to drop alone into the 1m39s bracket.

Albon suffered his worst qualifying of the season with eighth in Austria, having taken three poles in a row himself earlier in the season. But the DAMS driver will start second for Sunday's feature race.

Fuoco held on for third, 10 spots better than he managed at the Red Bull Ring the week previous, while Louis Deletraz improved late on to sit one spot behind his teammate.

Sergio Sette Camara was the highest-placed Carlin runner in fifth, and will share the third row with teammate Lando Norris, who was 0.4s adrift of fellow British F1 junior Russell.

Arjun Maini (Trident) and Artem Markelov (Russian Time) both jumped into the top eight, while Luca Ghiotto (Campos) and Maxi Gunther (Arden) rounded out the top 10. 

Renault F1 junior Jack Aitken couldn't match his ART Grand Prix teammate Russell and sat 0.8s adrift in 12th, one place behind Prema’s Nyck de Vries.

The session was heavily delayed due to Roy Nissany stopping out on track with 22 minutes to go with reported engine difficulties.

Qualifying results:

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	8	George Russell	ART Grand Prix	1'39.989
2	5	Alexander Albon	DAMS	1'40.065	0.076
3	21	Antonio Fuoco	Charouz Racing System	1'40.094	0.105
4	20	Louis Deletraz	Charouz Racing System	1'40.190	0.201
5	18	Sergio Sette Camara	Carlin	1'40.234	0.245
6	19	Lando Norris	Carlin	1'40.396	0.407
7	16	Arjun Maini	Trident	1'40.512	0.523
8	1	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	1'40.590	0.601
9	14	Luca Ghiotto	Campos Racing	1'40.707	0.718
10	11	Maximilian Gunther	Arden International	1'40.786	0.797
11	4	Nyck de Vries	Prema Powerteam	1'40.847	0.858
12	7	Jack Aitken	ART Grand Prix	1'40.863	0.874
13	9	Roberto Merhi	MP Motorsport	1'40.994	1.005
14	10	Ralph Boschung	MP Motorsport	1'41.031	1.042
15	3	Sean Gelael	Prema Powerteam	1'41.052	1.063
16	6	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	1'41.061	1.072
17	17	Santino Ferrucci	Trident	1'41.414	1.425
18	2	Tadasuke Makino	RUSSIAN TIME	1'41.493	1.504
19	12	Nirei Fukuzumi	Arden International	1'42.081	2.092
20	15	Roy Nissany	Campos Racing	2'13.133	33.144