Valtteri Bottas claimed his second pole of the season ahead of the 2018 Russian Grand Prix.
The Mercedes driver pipped team-mate Lewis Hamilton to provisional pole after the first round of laps in Q3, setting a lap just 0.004s faster than the championship leader.
Both looked set to improve with their final laps of the session, but a wide moment at turn 7 lost Hamilton valuable time. He came into the pits as Bottas improved his time, ending the session with a 1m31.387s lap to set a new track record.
Sebastian Vettel had to settle for third quickest, more than half a second off Bottas’ pace, with Raikkonen 0.3s further back.
Kevin Magnussen picked up best of the rest in P5 with a 1m34.078s lap, ahead of Esteban Ocon, Charles Leclerc, and Sergio Perez.
Romain Grosjean and Marcus Ericsson completed the top 10.
Neither Red Bull driver made it through to Q3 after sitting out the second qualifying session. Both drivers, along with Fernando Alonso, Pierre Gasly, and Brendon Hartley, will start from the back of the grid after engine changes.
Gasly, Carlos Sainz Jnr, and Nico Hulkenberg also made it through to Q2 but didn’t set a lap time, with the Renault drivers not wanting to risk making it through to the top 10 and having to start on their qualifying tyres.
Brendon Hartley narrowly missed out on a top 15 appearance, qualifying 16th, ahead of Alonso and Sergey Sirotkin, who ran into the barriers in the closing minutes of the session.
Stoffel Vandoorne and Lance Stroll completed the order.
