Bahrain GP qualifying: Oscar Piastri takes pole as Lando Norris sixth

SAKHIR, Bahrain -- Oscar Piastri claimed a tighter-than-expected pole position for McLaren at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday.

Championship leader Lando Norris could only manage sixth position, handing his teammate a huge advantage in a season increasingly looking like a straight fight between the McLaren drivers.

Piastri's final benchmark was 1:29.841, just 0.1 seconds clear of Mercedes driver George Russell who was later demoted to third. Both Mercedes drivers were handed a one-place grid drop by stewards on Saturday evening for a pitlane infringement.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc will start alongside Piastri on the front row after being promoted ahead of Russell.

McLaren had looked dominant across practice and in the first two sessions of qualifying, only for the field to close up on the papaya cars at the end of Q3.

Piastri claimed the second pole position of his career, and McLaren's first at Bahrain.

The papaya team has topped every session of the weekend so far. Piastri said afterwards: "I felt confident out there pretty much all weekend, FP1 was an experience for us all I think --it felt more like a rally car than an F1 car but from then on I felt really comfortable with the car.

"In FP3 we had good pace and in qualifying the others caught up a little bit closer than what I wanted, but I still delivered the laps when it mattered which is the most important thing at the end so I'm very happy."

Norris appeared to fluff his final run in Q3 and finished behind Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who will line up fifth after the penalty, and star of the session Pierre Gasly, who starts fourth for Alpine.

When asked what went wrong for him during the session, Norris said: "Honestly no idea, just not quick enough."

play

Esteban Ocon crashes out of qualifying at Bahrain GP

Haas' Esteban Ocon crashes during Q2 for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Consensus in the paddock is that McLaren are still a step ahead in race trim and with Bahrain a better circuit for overtaking Norris should fancy his chances at moving up the order on Sunday, but he has left himself with a lot of work to do.

Behind Norris was Japanese Grand Prix winner Max Verstappen, who had to settle for seventh for Red Bull -- although the team will be buoyed that Yuki Tsunoda progressed through to Q3 and managed 10th place.