Finland's Valtteri Bottas took his first Formula One pole position at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Saturday to end Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton's bid for a seventh in a row.
Triple world champion Hamilton qualified alongside, a mere 0.023 - or 17 centimeters - slower than Bottas's time of one minute 28.769 seconds but with everything still to play for on Sunday.
Hamilton's title fights over the last three years were within his own Mercedes team, twice beating Rosberg to the title - once easily and once in the last race of the season - only to lose it to the German driver last year.
"I got screwed, the rear tyres were too cold to prepare the lap", said Verstappen who finished in P6.
Wehrlein missed the first two races of the season after struggling to recover from a back injury sustained at the Race of Champions in Miami in January, where he sustained hairline cracks in vertebrae and compressed some of his intervertebral discs.
Chinese Grand Prix victor and joint Championship leader Lewis Hamilton was fifth overall, but struggled to get a clean lap on his quali runs, with Nico Hulkenberg holding him up at the apex of Turn 9 on his second attempt.
"At this stage unfortunately we're not battling for the big points yet", he said.
Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen of Finland takes a curve during the first practice session for the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix, at the Formula One Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, Bahrain, Friday, April 14, 2017.
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Quickest in FP3 was Red Bull's Max Verstappen, whose fast lap of 1:32.194 was.110 of a second better than the next best time set by Hamilton.
"I just felt I could get more out of myself and when you are that close to a podium".
With the dusk-to-night race and qualifying run in cooler conditions, champions Mercedes appeared to be focused more on longer runs with heavier fuel loads as track temperatures hovered around 37 degrees celsius. It was the sixth consecutive year in Bahrain that Mercedes won pole.
"It's great how close it is between the teams, it brings out the best in each driver", Hamilton said.
Verstappen ended up eighth overall, almost a second off the pace and behind both Hulkenberg and Felipe Massa in a competitive session.
Vettel was unsure as to why Ferrari lost time on their rivals. Eliminated in this session were Sainz, Vandoorne, Perez, Ericsson and Magnussen.
The Belgian rookie stopped at turn 10 in the opening practice session following another Honda engine problem which resulted in a delay to the start of his running later in the day. He finished third a year ago as well. Both Hamilton and Bottas started on the race tire, a supersoft for the Mercs.
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