Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was looking on course for a crucial pole position at the inaugural race in Jeddah, only for a final corner mistake to spoil all his hard work.

Verstappen had fired up the timing screen on his final flying effort in Q3, going fastest in the first two sectors and narrowly missing the wall as he navigated the tight Jeddah Corniche Circuit. He was set to be ahead of title rival – being over two-tenths up on Lewis Hamilton with only two-thirds of the lap complete.

However, understeer in the final corner forced the Dutchman to make a last-minute correction causing him to slide heavily into the wall.

Quickest in the first two sectors of his final flying lap 🚀

And then Max Verstappen's hopes of pole are dashed on the last corner in Q3 #SaudiArabianGP 🇸🇦 #F1 pic.twitter.com/Y6HyMjT1Dy

— Formula 1 (@F1) December 4, 2021

This was the end of Verstappen’s – and fans along – dreams. He was forced to park up his Red Bull RB16B on the pit straight – and had to settle for P3 on the grid (assuming Red Bull don’t need to change any parts on his car) behind the all black Mercedes front row.

It was a downbeat Verstappen who faced the media after qualifying.

“It’s of course terrible,” said Verstappen. “But it was in general a good qualifying. I mean it was a bit hard to switch on the tyres around here on this street circuit but I knew the pace was there and it showed in the last lap.

“I don’t really understand what happened. I locked up, but I still tried to keep the car on the track, tried to finish the lap, but I clipped the rear and had to stop. P3 is a bit disappointing knowing what lap I was on. But nevertheless, it shows that the car is quick and let’s see what we can do in the race.”

Asked, meanwhile, if he thought he’d suffered extensive damage in the crash: “I don’t know. I mean, I immediately stopped, so let’s see.”

What a lap that would've been 😔🏁 pic.twitter.com/HQjXKyZDxh

— Red Bull Racing Honda (@redbullracing) December 4, 2021

Verstappen was furious after qualifying and, adding to Red Bull’s troubles, Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez could only take P5 on the grid.

The Mexican beaten by Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari ended in P4 – with Perez saying: “Tricky. [Qualifying was] dominated by the tyres basically.

“We did really struggle with that in the end. The approach that we had for Q3 probably wasn’t ideal, I couldn’t match my Q2 lap time on the medium and not an ideal result.

“But the race is going to be so long tomorrow, and so much to play for tomorrow I feel, so anything can happen.”

It wasn’t the ideal Saturday for Red Bull - with Verstappen endangering the potential win of his maiden title – while Red Bull trying to close down the five-point gap to Mercedes in the constructors'.