With margins tight on the short Red Bull Ring, Russell qualified in 11th when his best Q2 time was deleted for crossing the track limits in the final corner, a recurring theme in qualifying for Sunday's grand prix.
But even without having laptimes taken away Russell appeared to be struggling for pace, which he doesn't have an answer for.
"Just not quick enough today," he said. "I think from the first laps in practice I just hadn't got the right feel with the car.
"It's difficult when you go to sprint race weekend, you don't have a lot of time to make some changes. Let's see what we can do overnight into tomorrow.
"Obviously, P11 is not the best starting position but we've had some good results from further down the field so far this year, so all is not lost.
"The tyre deg looked pretty bad in practice, so probably looking at two stop race.
"But yeah, we need to understand what's going on at the moment. We're struggling a bit, especially on Saturdays."
Team-mate Lewis Hamilton did advance to Q3 and finished fifth behind the McLaren of Lando Norris, acknowledging the Red Bull Ring didn't prove to be a strong circuit for the Silver Arrows as he conceded 0.428s to polesitter Max Verstappen.
Source: Autosport