The Mercedes driver secured fourth place in Q3, which will become third on the final grid thanks to Carlos Sainz's penalty.
He outpaced his team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who failed to progress to the final session after taking 11th in Q2, with the seven-time world champion also gain set to gain a spot from Sainz.
Russell believes that graining will be such a big issue that starting positions will be relatively meaningless come the end of the evening.
"Happy with the result," he said when asked by Autosport about his session. "I felt confident around this circuit. We weren't expecting to be this competitive coming into this weekend.
"But to be honest, as strange as it sounds I wasn't too concerned about where we qualified today, as long as we were in the top 10.
"Because it is the biggest unknown of the season going into the race tomorrow, we saw huge amounts of graining on all teams.
"If you can stay within the threshold of not graining a one-stop will be comfortable. But as soon as you start graining the tyres, you have to pit. And I don't think we've done more than 12 laps without graining the tyres. So that's going to be the big challenge."
Asked if he knew how to extend the useful life of the tyres, he said: "Well, you can drive slower, and that will manage the tyres, but you'll get attacked from behind.
Source: Autosport