Valtteri Bottas claimed his first ever pole position by setting a lap time of 1:28.769, two-hundredths of a second faster than team mate Lewis Hamilton who will start alongside him.

The Ferrari's lacked the pace today as their times were quite far away from the Silver Arrows as both Vettel and Raikkonen will line up third and fifth on the grid.

Red Bull surprisingly split the Ferrari's, with Daniel Ricciardo getting himself in between the two red cars, while Verstappen will be disappointed as his lap was half a second slower than his team mate's.

Q1

There was no immediate rush to leave the pits, but it wasn't long before the cars emerged. The two Sauber drivers of Pascal Wehrlein and Marcus Ericsson departed first in a bid to set an early lap.

On their first run, Wehrlein set the fastest time, four tenths of a second ahead of his Sweedish team mate. Plenty of drivers began to set faster times, as Bottas was the first front runner to come across the line.

The Finn set a 1:31.041 on the soft tyre, while replays showed his team mate Lewis Hamilton going wide and abandoning his lap. However, on his second attempt, he was able to set a 1:30.814. 

While the Silver Arrows set their times on the soft compound, Verstappen slotted into second on the super softs. The end of the session neared and it saw leaps up the order from Grosjean, Palmer, Hulkenberg and Ocon.

Stoffel Vandoorne failed to get out of the drop zone on his fastest lap, while Sainz pulled over right at the end with a power failure, disrupting many laps including Sergio Perez, who was a shock exit from the session.

Drivers out in Q1 - Carlos Sainz, Stoffel Vandoorne, Sergio Perez, Marcus Ericsson & Kevin Magnussen 

Q2

The second part of qualifying was a bit more hectic than the first as plenty of cars rushed out to get a lap in. Bottas was first to set a time, and it was a 1:29.555.

However, he was marginally displaced by team mate Lewis Hamilton who went two-hundredths of a second faster. The Red Bull's slotted into third and fourth, which became fifth and sixth when the Ferrari's set their laps.

The lack of pace from the energy drinks team began to appear here, as they were over half a second down on the fastest time. Lance Stroll waited for the optimum time to leave the garage and got into the top 10, but was kicked out almost straight way by the Haas of Romain Grosjean.

Fernando Alonso seemed to suffer from an issue as he did not set a lap in the session.

Drivers out in Q2 - Daniil Kvyat, Lance Stroll, Pascal Wehrlein, Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso

Q3

The Red Bulls were the first drivers to emerge from the garage, quickly followed by the Mercs. Tensions were running high and the anticipation to see who could pull off the fastest time was high.

Ricciardo set the first time, but it was quite poor and was topped by Valtteri Bottas who only momentarily sat atop the timesheets, as he was displaced by team mate Hamilton, who set a 1:28.792.

Sebastian Vettel came across the line but looked worryingly off the pace in comparison to the Mercedes. Raikkonen was also much slower than Vettel and the prancing horses disappointed on their first runs.   

On the second runs, it looked set to be a fight between the two Mercedes as so it proved to be as Bottas went very slightly quicker than Hamilton's time. We waited to see what the Brit could do but a mistake in the middle sector meant he couldn't improve, leaving Bottas to take his maiden pole position. 

Fergal Walsh