Charles Leclerc clinched his maiden pole position in qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix as Ferrari scored there 62nd front-row lockout.

The young Monegasque driver put on a sensational showing in Q3, posting two solid laps good enough to take the Scuderia’s 220th pole position.

On his first effort, Leclerc set a 1:27.958 running Pirelli’s red side-walled soft rubber, which gave him the edge over Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton whilst Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel opted to not attempt his initial run.

Leclerc on his second flyer improved to a 1:27.866, which was three tenths quicker than Vettel done on his only timed lap.

Hamilton was just 0.030 off of Vettel and was good enough for third place on the grid, whilst Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas qualified fourth, a further 0.066 adrift of the Briton.

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen rounded out the top five, but was just narrowly threatened by Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen who ended up just five thousandths of a second behind to qualify sixth.

Carlos Sainz put on an impressive session for McLaren taking the seventh spot on the grid, meanwhile team-mate Lando Norris further added to the Woking-based outfit’s great run in qualifying completing the top ten.

Sandwiched in-between the two Renault-powered MCL34’s were the second Haas of Romain Grosjean and Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen who were ninth and tenth respectively.

Grosjean however, has been hit with a three-grid place penalty for impeding the aforementioned Norris’ attempt at the penultimate corner during his hot lap with the Frenchman being relegated to start 11th behind Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo.

All drivers in the top ten set posted their Q2 lap efforts on the red-marked softs, which means they’ll begin the 57 lap race on the faster compound.

Ricciardo qualified in 11th for Renault but will move up a place due to the aforementioned Grosjean-Norris incident.

Toro Rosso’s Alexander Albon qualified in 12th on the grid and in-front of Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly who was 13th and unable to improve on his first timed run with the Frenchman saying “I can’t put the throttle down, I don’t know why – it snaps everywhere”.

Racing Point’s Sergio Perez had a sole run in Q2, which was good enough for 14th place and in-front of the other STR14 Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat who qualified 15th.

Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi was the quickest of the Q1 eliminated runners, taking 16th on the grid after wounding up just 0.067 slower than team-mate Raikkonen.

The Italian provisionally done enough to get out of the drop zone on his second run on the soft compound, but a raft of improvements from his rivals around him relegated him out of Q1.

Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg was the big casualty of the first qualifying stage, ending up a lowly 17th with the German only improving by a tenth on his second flyer, which put him in-front of Racing Point’s Lance Stroll.

George Russell was the quickest of the Williams pairing, qualifying 19th on the grid and ahead of team-mate Robert Kubica who starts at the rear.

The Top Three

Pole Position- Charles Leclerc, #16, Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow SF 90: “This first pole position brings me a lot of emotions, even if I’m trying to stay as cool as possible, as there are no points for pole position and the race is tomorrow. It has been a great day and a great weekend overall for the team so far, so I hope it will continue tomorrow. I said it was a question of putting everything together for qualifying and it seems I did it, unlike what happened in the first race. It’s an amazing feeling but now we have to focus on the race and try to bring home the best possible result tomorrow. I feel more comfortable in the car lap after lap so I’m satisfied. Before the race we will talk with the team to find the perfect strategy in order to give the Scuderia the best possible result. The start will probably be the key as the track is dirty and it’s easy to have wheelspin”.

Second- Sebastian Vettel, #5, Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow SF90: “Today we were in the fight. The main thing is we are back where we want to be. It’s tomorrow that counts, but for today we can certainly be very happy as we are in a much better place than two weeks ago. Today it’s about Ferrari and about Charles who did a very very good job and nailed his laps in Q3 and he deserved to be on pole. He’s a good kid, actually, a good man, because once you get a pole in Formula 1 you are a man! It’s a big achievement and I am happy for him. Chapeau! Our one lap pace was there the whole weekend and we were able to confirm this in qualifying. I’m a lot happier today and it’s good to see that we are back on the right track”.

Third- Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport F1 W10 EQ Power+: “I really enjoyed Qualifying and it was great to see the progression for us over the weekend. Congratulations to Charles, he did a great job and deserved to get his first pole today. We’ve seen strong pace from the Ferraris all weekend long. We’ve worked very hard to narrow that gap, but they were really fast on the straights and that’s ultimately where we lost a lot of the time today. Our car felt okay today; I think this track has never particularly suited our car in the past for whatever reason, but I think we got it into a quite good place today, so hopefully it feels good tomorrow as well. It will be a very hard race, physically challenging and tough on the tyres, but our race pace was good last year, so I’m hopeful it will be good again this year. I love that it’s a close and exciting battle, that’s really how it should be.”

The Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2019 Starting Grid