2017 Bahrain GP Qualifying: Bottas gets the beating of Hamilton

For the first time in his Formula One career, Valtteri Bottas secured pole position with a stunning lap that helped him beat his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton and the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel.

Bottas' 1:28.769 proved to be good enough to top the timing boards, after Hamilton made an uncharacteristic error on his final run - breaking the Brit's run of six consecutive pole positions.

Daniel Ricciardo split Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen, whilst his Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen languished nearly a second off the ultimate pace in sixth. Renault were the surprise package of the evening, with Nico Hulkenberg and Jolyon Palmer ensuring that the Enstone team have two cars starting in the top 10 for the first time since the Belgian Grand Prix in 2015.

Sainz and Perez fall at first hurdle

In the first session, the two Ferraris and Mercedes cars utilised the soft compound initially, with Hamilton leading Verstappen and Vettel. The Brit recovered from locking up at Turn 10 on his first run, ruining his lap. However, Raikkonen didn't feel safe in making it through to the second session, having to move onto the super-soft compound in order to make the top five.

In terms of the bottom five, the biggest surprise came in seeing Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez failing to make the cut - Sainz' final run halted by a suspected fuel problem, leaving him 16th, and less than impressed. He was joined by Stoffel Vandoorne, Marcus Ericsson and Kevin Magnussen at the back of the grid.

Come the second session, both the Mercedes cars only opted for one run on their race set of super-soft tyres, and were unmoved at the top - Hamilton ahead of Bottas by two-hundredths of a second, with the two Ferraris of Vettel and Raikkonen in close company - the whole of the top four covered by less than four-tenths of a second. Yet, none of the aforementioned proved to be the star of the session; Hulkenberg launching his Renault up to fifth, with teammate Palmer enjoying a rare spell of joy, making it into Q3 for the first time in 2017.

On the other end of the spectrum, Fernando Alonso's miserable season continued, his session curtailed by a broken Power Unit - not for the first time this season. It wasn't even the first time this weekend, for McLaren.

The new Flying Finn

And so to the final shootout, Bottas' superb lap of 1:28.844 looked to be unbeatable, but Hamilton pulled out an even better effort, edging ahead on the first run by five-hundredths of a second. With Vettel, Raikkonen and the Red Bulls far behind, another Mercedes shootout added to the heat in the already warm ambient temperature.

In the dying seconds, the flurry of action started with Bottas improving, but it didn't look like quite enough, until Hamilton lost two-tenths in the middle sector, ensuring the Finn of his first ever Formula 1 pole position, after five years of trying.