Max Verstappen will start the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix on pole.
The Dutchman beat team-mate Sergio Perez by just over a tenth of a second, with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz taking out the second row for Ferrari.
Fernando Alonso’s exquisite pace in practice only translated to fifth after Ferrari and Red Bull opened their toolboxes, while Mercedes endured a disappointing evening; George Russell will start sixth ahead of Sir Lewis Hamilton.
Lance Stroll will start eighth – his injured wrist appeared to show during qualifying – before Esteban Ocon and the returning Nico Hulkenberg rounded off the top 10.
It took less than five minutes of the opening session for the red flag to be deployed when some debris flew off the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and ended up on the racetrack.
After things got back underway, the lead swapped hands a number of times, with just over three tenths of a second separating the top five.
Further down though, it was not looking so good for McLaren. Oscar Piastri were eliminated in the first session, joining Pierre Gasly, Nyck de Vries, Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant.
Gasly’s deleted lap time at the end of Q1 sent him down to last, while Sargeant set the same time as Lando Norris, but set it later. That meant the American agonisingly missed out on a Q2 appearance to the lead McLaren.
Sargeant’s team-mate Alex Albon did exceptionally well to make it into Q2, but could not put a lap time on the board after suffering with understeer.
Norris almost made it into the top 10, but was pipped by Lance Stroll, as Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu and Yuki Tsunoda also missed out on the top 10 shootout.
Verstappen’s pole in Bahrain was his 21st in Formula 1.