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Dutchman Max Verstappen brings the heat to Mercedes as he puts his car on pole position ahead of Lewis Hamilton in second and Valtteri Bottas in third.
Charles Leclerc qualified a fantastic fourth for Ferrari with Pierre Gasly in fifth for AlphaTauri. Daniel Ricciardo was ahead of McLaren teammate Lando Norris with the duo in sixth and seventh. Carlos Sainz placed eighth, Fernando Alonso in ninth and Lance Stroll in 10th.
Sergio Perez was only able to qualify 11th for Red Bull as Antonio Giovinazzi qualified in 12th as the best Alfa Romeo car. On his first qualifying, Yuki Tsunoda classified as the top rookie in 13th ahead of experienced Kimi Raikkonen in 14th and George Russell in 15th.
Esteban Ocon qualified P16, Nicholas Latifi in P17, Sebastian Vettel in a surprising P18 and the Haas duo of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin in P19 and P20.
Q1
Schumacher set the first lap time of the first qualifying session with a 1:33.861. Most of the drivers peeled out of the pits after the German finished his lap as they looked to get out of Q1.
Norris dislodged the Haas driver off the top with the McLaren nearly two seconds faster, but Leclerc then went a tenth faster than the Brit and then Sainz went three-hundredths faster than his Ferrari teammate.
The Mercedes pair jumped to the top of the timing charts as Hamilton set a 1:30.617. Verstappen took the upper hand going a tenth faster than the Brit.
Tsunoda went a hundredth faster than the seven-time World Champion as the Japanese driver jumped into second.
Verstappen topped the timing charts after Q1 with Tsunoda in second and Hamilton in third. Ocon, Latifi, Vettel, Schumacher and Mazepin were knocked out of the session and a huge shock was the Aston Martin as he carries so much expectation, but was only able to put his car into 18th.
Q2
Bottas was the first driver to set a lap time in the second qualifying session with the Finn setting a 1:30.559 as a benchmark time.
The Red Bull of Verstappen went two-tenths quicker than the Finn with Hamilton then going two-tenths quicker than the Dutchman.
Perez and Ricciardo also had their lap times deleted early on after the duo exceeded track limits at turn four and had to go again.
With a few minutes to go in Q2, the top eight drivers were separated by one second as the chance of the battle to reach the top 10 intensified.
At the end of the second qualifying session, the Ferrari duo of Sainz and Leclerc led the field with the Spaniard one-thousandths quicker than the Monegasque driver as Hamiton finished in third.
The drivers knocked out were: Perez with the Mexican taking a gamble on a used set of tyres, Giovinazzi, Tsunoda, Raikkonen and Russell.
Q3
Ricciardo was the first driver to set a lap time in Q3 as the Aussie set a 1:31.384. The McLaren driver’s time was beaten almost instantly by Gasly with the Frenchman going over a second faster.
Hamilton went onto provisional pole but it was snatched away from the Mercedes driver by Verstappen, who went two-hundredths quicker which dropped the Brit to second and saw Gasly in P3.
After the final fast lap, the Dutchman went almost three-tenths faster than Hamilton with Bottas in P3 as Red Bull started the season with a dominant qualifying display.
What’s Next?
Max Verstappen lines up on pole position and will lead the pack away on Sunday as he will be hoping to take Red Bull to yet another victory.
Mercedes have their pairing of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas lining up right behind the Dutchman. The duo will look to dislodge the Red Bull and ruin his early fast pace he has set in pre-season testing and qualifying.
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