Red Bull’s Sergio Perez will start from pole position for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix but his teammate, world champion Max Verstappen, will only finish 15th after suffering car problems during Saturday’s qualifying.
Perez, who also took pole in last year’s race here, topped the leaderboard with a best lap of one minute 28.265 seconds.
Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc was second, 0.155 seconds behind Perez, but would drop 10 places, with Fernando Alonso starting on the front row in his Aston Martin.
Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton could only post the eighth-fastest time, but teammate George Russell was fourth-fastest and will start third, alongside Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.
Lance Stroll in the second Aston Martin and Esteban Ocon Alpine will be on the third row of the grid.
Verstappen, who won the opening race in Bahrain at the start of the month, has dominated practice, winning each of the three sessions.
However, in Q2 he reported to the team “I have a problem” before adding “it hardly accelerates”.
The Dutchman is up and will start in the eighth row in the box.