In the best performance of his brief Formula One career, 22-year-old West Australian Daniel Ricciardo has qualified a brilliant sixth for the Bahrain Grand Prix and will start Sunday’s race alongside the winner of last weekend’s Chinese GP, Nico Rosberg.

World champion Sebastian Vettel has pole position for the first time this season for Red Bull Racing, edging McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton to the other side of the front row of the grid.

Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber will start third, with Jenson Button (McLaren), the winner of last month’s Australian GP, next to him on the second row/

Ricciardo lapped the Sakhir circuit in his Ferrari-engined Toro Rosso car less than 0.1 second slower than the Mercedes of Rosberg and within 0.5 seconds of top qualifier Vettel.

While the Perth driver will have three world champions ahead of him, three other world champions will start behind him – Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) in ninth, Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus-Renault) 11th and Michael Schumacher (Mercedes) 18th.

Ricciardo’s Toro Rosso teammate Jean-Eric Vergne was eliminated in the first of the three sections of qualifying, with the 19th fastest time of the 24 drivers and more than 2 seconds slower than Ricciardo’s best qualifying lap.