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Red Bull's Max Verstappen will start the race from pole position after upsetting Ferrari's Carlos Sainz in Saturday's qualifying.

Verstappen will start ahead of Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez after the one-hour qualifying session, which was split into three segments with five cars each being knocked out in Q1 and Q2 before the top-10 shootout of Q3. 

Verstappen produced a 1m27.472s on his first run in Q3 but did not improve on his second attempt so that stood as the time to beat.

Charles Leclerc finished second for Ferrari, with Sergio Perez third in the other RB20 and Carlos Sainz's replacement, Oliver Bearman, taking 10th in the second of the Scuderia's machines.

The start of the second one-hour session on Thursday in Jeddah was delayed by 10 minutes as the FIA checked drain covers in the pitlane, but it ran to time under the lights in what is the only representative practice night-time running ahead of qualifying and the race.

The winner of the Bahrain Grand Prix last week, Verstappen headlined FP1 in Jeddah with a 1m29.659s on the soft compound tyres, taking top spot from Mercedes' George Russell in the process.

Verstappen beat his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in the 57-lap race under the floodlights.

RB’s Daniel Ricciardo was quickest in Free Practice 1, while Hamilton paced FP2 with a fastest time of the day of 1m30.374s.

Fernando Alonso humbles Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz in wheel-to-wheel combat, then profits from Charles Leclerc’s engine failure to win the opening race of 2023. The two-time Formula 1 world champion’s Bahrain success marks his first victory since the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix.