Doha: Lewis Hamilton maintained the momentum of the amazing victory last week in Brazil to claim the pole for Qatar Prix Prime after qualifying on Saturday.
Max Verstappen, who led his rival Mercedes with 14 points with three races to leave, will start with Hamilton in the front row on Sunday.
But the gap would give all on the Red Bull a nervous night – almost half a second, a new engine that was clearly Hamilton was only installed last weekend has injected fresh life into the eighth world business that has never happened before.
The time of his flying 1 minute 20,827 which won the position of Qatar’s first pole proved too much for verstappen, which was slower.
Hamilton’s Teammate Valtteri Bottas posted the third fastest time under the spotlight on the Losail Circuit to fill the second line with Pierre Gasmy for Alpha Tauri.
Mercedes was handed by an unexpected advantage in their titanic title fight with Red Bull after Verstappen teammate Sergio Perez failed to make it to Q3 Top 10 Shoot Out.
With Mexico down in the sixth row on the Red Bull grid tactics for disappointing Mercedes resting in the band of one person named Verstappen.
This is the 102th career pillar of Hamilton but the first since Hungary almost four months ago.