Max Verstappen found an extra tenth of pace to take pole in Qatar and reverse Red Bull’s fortunes.

In a tight session, Verstappen found an extra few hundredths of a second to secure the fifth pole of his F1 career.

From the off, it looked like it would be a session of fine margins with George Russell, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri all trading places at the top of the timesheets having shared the sprint podium earlier in the day.

There was a much-needed improvement in performance from Sergio Perez who, having failed to go at a green light in the sprint, made it to Q3 for the first time since Austin. Once in the final session, the Mexican could only manage.

Stake produced their best qualifying performance for a number of races as Zhou Guanyu finished 12th and his team-mate Valtteri Bottas just one spot behind while Pierre Gasly was frustrated at missing out on a Q3 spot.

Having finished in the points in the sprint, Nico Hulkenberg followed up that performance with a Q1 exit, qualifying 18th and leading race engineer Gary Gannon to suggest the team had got the run plan wrong.

Franco Colapinto’s poor weekend continued as he qualified 19th with Esteabn Ocon starting Sunday’s grand prix from last place as it stands.