Berlin, 20 April 2024 (dpa/MIA) — Max Verstappen won the first sprint race of the Formula One season and then went on to claim a 100th pole position for Red Bull ahead of team-mate Sergio Perez on a perfect Saturday at the Chinese Grand Prix for the world champion.

Verstappen topped the 19-lap sprint from fourth on the grid 13 seconds ahead of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes and Perez.

Four hours later the Dutchman maintained his perfect qualifying season record for a regular grand prix when he clocked 1 minute 33.660 seconds on the 5.451-kilometre Shanghai International Circuit.

Perez trailed by .322 of a second and Fernando Alonso will be third on Sunday's grid for Aston Martin.

The second part of qualifying was red flagged after Ferrari's Carlos Sainz spun off and hit the barriers but the Spaniard was able to return to the pits and continue with a new front wing, eventually placing seventh, behind team-mate Charles Leclerc.

Hamilton was meanwhile brought down to earth harshly when he came third last in a qualifying session after a mistake.

Verstappen had no such problems and said after his 37th career pole: "After the sprint race it gave us a few more ideas for the car and I think the car worked even better in qualifying.

"The car was really nice to drive and that final lap felt pretty decent.

"I'm also very happy to drive here in the dry. The conditions were pretty good, so it was a lot of fun."

Red Bull had struggled on Friday in practice and in a wet sprint qualifying where Verstappen had settle for fourth on the grid behind McLaren's Lando Norris, Hamilton and Alonso who made the most of the conditions in normally inferior cars.

Hamilton edged ahead of Norris into the first turn of the sprint, with Norris going off the track and falling behind to eventually place sixth.

Hamilton, who has not topped a podium since 2021, enjoyed a rare lead until finally being caught by Verstappen in lap 9, and the Dutchman never looked back once in front.

But there was plenty of action further back, with Perez moving into third by benefiting from a fierce duel between Alonso and Sainz, and Sainz then seemingly forcing team-mate Leclerc off the track before having to settle for fifth behind him in the end.

Alonso had to retire in the closing stages, after first coming to the pits over a puncture he sustained in the battle with Sainz.

Verstappen said things went "much better than I ever thought it would be in the race. Of course I wanted to win but I didn’t think it was going to be like that.

“It just seemed like, after five or six laps, everyone went through their tyres a little bit and we really started to take off."

Hamilton said: “This is the best result I have had in a long time so I am super happy. This is a huge step and a huge improvement. The rain helped yesterday."

However, his mood changed within hours in qualifying: "18th is pretty bad. When I was making the set-up changes I was like ‘it can’t get any worse, surely’ and it did."

Verstappen has won three of the four grands prix races, and leads the standings 15 points from Perez in F1's return to China after five years due the coronavirus pandemic and China's zero-Covid policy.