Sergio Perez on Saudi Arabia pole as Hamilton out early and Schumacher crashes

Red Bull's Sergio Perez beat Ferrari's Charles Leclerc to take his first Formula 1 pole position at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The Mexican was 0.261 seconds quicker than world champion team-mate Max Verstappen, who was down in fourth.

Perez beat Leclerc by 0.225secs, with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz third, 0.177secs behind his team-mate.

Mercedes driver George Russell was sixth as team-mate Lewis Hamilton could manage only 16th.

Perez's pole was unexpected to say the least. He is not known as a great qualifier, he beat Verstappen only once in their first season together last year and this achievement came in his 220th grand prix.

«I could do another 1,000 laps and I could never beat this lap time,» Perez said.

But it was well deserved. He had looked closer than usual to Verstappen throughout the weekend but put in what he called the lap of his life to beat Leclerc at the very end of qualifying.

«The lap felt good,» Leclerc said. «I was very happy with the lap. In the second lap, I just went for it. I definitely did not expect that lap time from Checo and he did an incredible job today.»

Leclerc himself had saved his best for last — he improved by more than 0.2secs on his final run to leapfrog himself ahead of Sainz, who had taken provisional pole with his first lap.

It sets up an intriguing race, with the Ferraris sandwiched between the Red Bulls at the start, following Leclerc's win in the season opener in Bahrain last weekend, where Red Bull suffered an agonising late double retirement.

And it came at the end of a crash-strewn session in which there were two red flags, the second one for a massive crash involving Mick Schumacher which caused a stoppage of nearly an hour.

Mercedes are not competitive at the moment as they battle