Charles Leclerc recovered from a spin in his first run of Q3 to claim an impressive pole position at the Spanish Grand Prix.
The Monegasque had led every practice session before qualifying in Barcelona but put himself under pressure with a mistake at the final chicane.
However, it was nothing but a blip for Leclerc who produced a scintillating 1m18.750s to beat Max Verstappen by a considerable three-tenths of a second.
Q1
Some early surprises in the opening segment as both Aston Martin’s, who have been under the spotlight over their Red Bull-esque upgrades, were eliminated.
Late improvements meant Sebastian Vettel slipped to 16th, missing out on Q2 by almost a tenth of a second. Teammate Lance Stroll was only 18th.
The other big surprise was Alpine with Fernando Alonso being knocked out in front of his home crowd in 18th, while Esteban Ocon only squeaked through in P15.
Both Williams’ will start from the back row as Alex Albon was 19th and Nicholas Latifi brought up the field in 20th.
Q2
The fight for Q3 saw frustration for Lando Norris, who thought he had made it inside the top 10 only to have his lap time deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 12.
That dropped the Briton back down to P11 by just 0.035s but promoted Mick Schumacher into Q3 for the first time in his F1 career.
Esteban Ocon was unhappy with his Alpine team in 12th, ahead of the two AlphaTauris as Yuki Tsunoda out-qualified Pierre Gasly.
Zhou Guanyu rounded out the top 15 in the Alfa Romeo.
Q3
It was a tale of two runs in Q3 as Verstappen initially set went quickest with an impressive 1m19.0s, while Leclerc spun at the chicane.
However, the Ferrari driver responded brilliantly with a near-perfect lap to beat the world champion by three-tenths and claim his fourth pole of the season.
In contrast, Verstappen complained about a loss of power during his second lap and wouldn’t improve. His time though remained good enough for second ahead of Carlos Sainz in third.
A strong lap from George Russell put him fourth ahead of Sergio Perez, as Lewis Hamilton completed the top six in the second Mercedes.
Valtteri Bottas was the lead midfield runner in seventh with Kevin Magnussen eighth, Daniel Ricciardo ninth after only doing one flying lap in Q3 and Schumacher rounding out the top 10.
