Russell had not looked a contender for pole in Austria for much of the weekend, and he lagged behind Antonelli in the first two qualifying sessions.
But he found a groove in the third session, second fastest by just 0.043secs and then nailing a beauty of a final lap.
“It’s one of those, when you nail Turn One and you go through fast, but the car doesn’t slide, it keeps the [tyre] temperatures a little bit down, so the tyres are cooler approaching the next turn, and then you have more grip, you go through there faster, and the tyres are cooler once again,” Russell said.
“It’s this sort of upward spiral. And equally, if you have a bad Turn One, you’re on this downward spiral. It just clicked. It’s just one of those magic laps and I’m just so pleased, because it’s been a real tough run for me.”
Russell fell to 68 points behind Antonelli in the championship after Monaco at the beginning of this month, where a penalty he should never have received dropped him from third to 12th.
That followed his retirement from the lead in Canada, struggles for pace in Miami, and circumstances going against him in a couple of races early in the season.
The only good luck he has had was at the last race in Spain when Antonelli retired having just passed Russell for second place behind Lewis Hamilton’s winning Ferrari.
Antonelli admitted on Saturday that even if he had not bailed on his lap when he did not need to – having mistakenly thought he saw double waved yellow flags rather than the single yellows that were actually in place – he would not have beaten Russell’s time.
“It would have been very close with George,” the Italian said. “He would have been a little bit ahead but it would have been front row.”
This time, Russell had him covered, but he was not sure why.
“The lap was unbelievable,” Russell said.” And then obviously I got that yellow flag, the single yellow in the last sector, but I did a hundred-metre lift, lost a huge amount of time and still, you know… I don’t know. I don’t have the answer.
“For sure I’ll be looking with my team where it came from, but it felt very sweet.”