Red Bull’s Max Verstappen secured pole position for this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix ahead of Mercedes duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.
Mercedes had their best qualifying races of the season despite Verstappen beating Russell by just 0.236 seconds with Hamilton 0.136secs further adrift in third.
Verstappen pulled out a blinder of a lap on his final run and when Alonso went second in the Aston Martin with a lap 0.407secs off the world champion, the front of the grid seemed set given Ferrari’s lack of pace this weekend.
However, Russell popped up between Verstappen and Alonso and then Hamilton snuck in there.
Sergio Perez, who is just one point behind Verstappen in the championship after his victory in Saudi Arabia and who started the weekend saying he had confidence he had Red Bull’s backing to challenge his team-mate, suffered a major blow as he crashed the second Red Bull on his first lap of qualifying and will start the race at the back.
Lance Stroll was sixth for Aston, ahead of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari and the impressive Williams of Alex Albon.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg completed the top 10.
Albon and Hulkenberg produced eye-catching performances to be in the top 10 in their normally uncompetitive cars but it was the Mercedes that produced the surprise of qualifying.