The Latest Breaking News from Zhou Guanyu

Verstappen had not headlined a single session across the weekend so far, but dialled in his pace throughout the qualifying sessions and found a quarter-second advantage at the very end to deny Ferrari a chance at pole.

A 1m17.277s from Leclerc, his second hot lap on soft tyres, handed him a handy advantage over the rest of the field and put him clear of then runner-up Carlos Sainz, who was shuffled down to third by Verstappen's later second soft run.

Verstappen beat his team-mate Sergio Perez, who incurred a penalty during the pitstops that didn’t impact the finishing order, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Verstappen will start ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez after the one-hour qualifying session, which is 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 and so that stood as the time to beat.

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 illness-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 phenomenon of boiling, twisting vortices being generated by winged F1 machines has been an issue through the generations.But in the championship’s moves to improve its entertainment spectacle, particularly over the last 20 years or so, the desire to clean-up outwash airflow generated by cars to allow following drivers to…