Lewis Hamilton left it late but stormed to a superb pole position at the Bahrain Grand Prix ahead of Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.


Ferrari appeared in a position to challenge until the final laps, when the Mercedes stretched their legs to go half a second clear of the red cars.


Sebastian Vettel will start third ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.


And Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne out-qualified McLaren team-mate Jenson Button on his Formula 1 debut.


Vandoorne was 12th and Button 14th, complaining of a handling imbalance on his final lap but admitting "he did a good job and I didn't".