Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez both said they expect their cars to be even better on Sunday despite dominating the final part of qualifying.
Red Bull secured a front-row lockout in Bahrain for the first time. Verstappen took pole position with team-mate Perez able to sneak into second, after Ferrari made the decision to save tyres and not send Charles Leclerc out for a second Q3 run.
Ferrari had to settle for third and fourth on the grid, while Fernando Alonso steered a very competitive-looking Aston Martin to fifth. Mercedes, therefore, had to settle for having George Russell sixth on the grid and Lewis Hamilton one place further back.
Ominously for their rivals, the Red Bull drivers both made it clear that they expect their machines to be even better in Sunday's race. "I was actually positively surprised to be on pole after the struggles I had in practice," said Verstappen after securing pole.
"Normally, our race car is better – the long run should be our stronger point. so let's see.
"It has been a bit of a tough start to the weekend, not really finding my rhythm but in qualifying, we managed to put the best pieces together and really happy to be on pole and for the whole team, coming off last year, having such a strong car with Checo up there as well, it is amazing."
Perez concurred with Verstappen that he should have an even quicker car at his disposal for the Grand Prix. "If anything, we prepared much more for the race," said the Mexican.
"We have more of a Sunday race car underneath us, at the moment. We knew we had to do some compromises for quali, which we ended up doing. They were not ideal, but hopefully tomorrow it pays off and we can have a very strong race car."
Meanwhile, Hamilton had to settle for seventh place on the grid – though he seemed pleasantly surprised by that. "I woke up this morning thinking we were going to be a lot further behind. The fact that we were even getting into Q3 was great," the seven-time world champion said.
" "A lot of work happened overnight, all the engineers and everyone back at the factory did a great job. And we made a step forward today, the car was feeling much, much more alive this morning. All of a sudden, we were in a different place than we were the day before.
"But when we got to qualifying, for me, the car just didn't feel alive. It felt kind of average. The direction I'm going in for my setup, I hope it works better for tomorrow. I tried to set it up for tomorrow, but that made it a little bit difficult for qualifying."
Russell though believes the best Mercedes can hope for is third place come race day. He said: "Ferrari, over the last four years, have always been really strong in qualifying and struggled a bit more in the race, Fernando is a dark horse, so I think it's going to be a good fight for P3. It's just a shame the Red Bulls are a bit too far ahead for now."
