Max Verstappen delivered some much-needed relief for his Red Bull team on Friday when he resisted Ferrari's Charles Leclerc to claim pole position for Saturday's season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
The defending three-time world champion picked up where he left off last year by topping the times in a closely-contested qualifying session at the Bahrain International Circuit at Sakhir.
His success, which he admitted was "a little bit unexpected" arrived after another day of speculation and pressure for team boss Christian Horner, following the anonymous leaking of a cache of alleged private messages and photographs between him and a female member of the team.
This came 24 hours after an internal investigation led by an independent London lawyer had resulted in Horner being cleared of all claims of inappropriate behaviour.
Verstappen clocked a fastest lap of one minute and 29.179 seconds to beat Leclerc by 0.228 seconds in the final seconds of the session, securing his third Bahrain pole and the 33rd of his career.
"It was a lot of fun," said Verstappen.
"The track had a lot of grip, but with the wind over the last few days, it's been quite tricky to get a whole lap together and it was the same in qualifying.
"In Q1 and Q2 you go a bit faster, with the track ramping up, but to really get everything out of it in Q3 was a little bit difficult. So I'm very happy to be on pole."
He added: "To be honest, it was a little bit unexpected, but I think the car came to us and I felt happier with the whole car."
He forecast a close race on Saturday.
"We look good for the race and that's the most important, but we will see tomorrow. I'm confident we can have a strong race."
Ferrari's Leclerc missed pole by only two-tenths of a second as he finished second ahead of Mercedes' George Russell, Carlos Sainz of Ferrari and Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull.
"I'm a bit disappointed," admitted Leclerc.
"But we had a good qualifying and this offers us a good start to the year."
Exceptionally the Bahrain race and next weekend's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix are being staged on Saturdays to accommodate the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
