Valtteri Bottas produced another Sochi special to beat Lewis Hamilton and claim pole as the domination of Mercedes continued in qualifying for the Russian Grand Prix.
Hamilton appeared to have everything under control in the first two segments but in the all-important top 10 shoot-out it was the Finn who took the early advantage by 0.004s and the Briton couldn’t respond, running wide on his second attempt.
Ferrari continued to lag behind the Silver Arrows but Sebastian Vettel can be very satisfied with third and may well fancy his chances to get ahead on the long run to Turn 2 at the start.
Kimi Raikkonen was close on his final flying lap but ran wide at the final corner ensuring he will start fourth.
Red Bull’s grid penalties meant the midfield had more positions on offer inside the top 10 and it was a superb effort by Kevin Magnussen on his last lap to snatch P5 for Haas.
Esteban Ocon followed in sixth as Charles Leclerc secured his best qualifying result of the season in seventh for Sauber.
Their respective teammates would round out the top 10 with Sergio Perez eighth ahead of Romain Grosjean and Marcus Ericsson rounding out the Q3 places.
The Q2 order was decided by default as Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo and Pierre Gasly had little point in running due to their engine penalties.
However, Renault shocked many by seeing P11 and P12 were guaranteed for their drivers and, therefore, also stayed in the garage ensuring a free choice of tyres for the start on Sunday.
Earlier, Red Bull had hinted at their speed in Q1 though, beating both Ferraris to finish third and fourth although it is unlikely those positions would have been retained in the later sessions as the engines were turned up.
At the back, the five slowest drivers from Practice 3 remained with Brendon Hartley joining the two McLaren’s and two Williams’ in the bottom five.
The Kiwi and Fernando Alonso, who were 16th and 17th fastest, will drop to the back, however, promoting Sergey Sirotkin to 13th for his home race, having out-qualified teammate Lance Stroll by eight-tenths of a second in the Williams battle.
Indeed, the Canadian was the slowest overall with Stoffel Vandoorne ahead in what will be 14th place.
Alonso will actually move up one position from that he finished to P16 despite his penalty with Gasly, Hartley, Ricciardo and Verstappen starting from the back two rows.
Full results from qualifying can be seen below:
