The Ferrari driver had to do everything in the last part of qualifying after turning into the penultimate corner during his banking tour in Q3, but then the points leader was stunned on his second attempt.
Running up to 1m18.750s comfortably marked the fastest lap of the weekend as he won his 13th pole position in Formula 1 with three tenths above his title contender Verstappen.
The defending champion, who held a temporary pole after his first effort in Q3, was forced to end his last lap after his Red Bull suffered even more unreliability and died at turn 3.
The comfortable pacemaker for Q2 Verstappen soon managed to make a crushing breakthrough in the last sector to take a four-tenth advantage in his first flying lap in the last part of qualifying to record 1m19.073s.
This threw him at the top of the sync screens as he ran a mighty 0.35 seconds ahead of the temporary Sainz pacer, while Perez finished third ahead of the Mercedes pair.
Leclerc was the main name missing at the height of his time after dropping his first lap of Q3 with a turn of 14, although he placed the top five mini-sectors in the lap.
The rear axle of the Ferrari turned to the left of the narrow chicane when, as in Imola, it caught too much curb. He then locked all four tires, stopping the car.
Leclerc was equipped with a new set of soft tires and left relatively early for the qualifying climax, leaving his garage with three and a half minutes to play.
But he joined the fastest second and third sectors to roll to the pole.
After the power outage, Verstappen finally managed to restart his car and his first move was enough to complete the first row in front of Sainz, who fell tenth in the current with his 1m19.166s.
George Russell led the renewed effort by Mercedes in fourth place, ahead of Sergio Perez, while Lewis Hamilton ran to sixth after his first lap in Q3 was injured by an excessive turn from the last turn.
Valteri Botas finished seventh for Alfa Romeo ahead of Kevin Magnussen, while Daniel Ricciardo dropped out of ninth after McLaren chose not to send him for a second Q3.
Meanwhile, Mick Schumacher finished in the top 10.
Lando Norris failed to advance to the top 10 by 0.035 seconds when stewards erased his last lap in a 15-minute session for slightly exceeding runway limits at turn 12.
The McLaren driver, who also cut the bolt for turn 14, had just prevented Mick Schumacher from entering Q3 before his lap was blocked and he fell.
Esteban Ocon interrupted his second effort in Q2 to tie for 12th place as Yuki Tsunoda overtook his AlphaTauri teammate Pierre Gasley.
The French athlete struggled with understeer in turn 5 on his last run, after running almost the entire FP3 due to a fire in his tour of the installation.
Alfa Romeo rookie Guanyu Zhou finished in the top 15.
World champions Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso were the biggest scalps to claim in the first half of the qualifiers, as they were shuffled in the last five places.
Alpine pilot Alonso, preparing for his home race, was forced to retire from his last flight due in part to early traffic from Norris, but stewards did not intervene. This left Alonso booty as the usual wave of improved times landed late.
Better laps from Pierre Gasley and Daniel Ricciardo secured their progress and subsequently dropped Vettel and Alonso to the final 16th and 17th in the standings.
Vettel, who missed the Q2 break with 0.07s, managed to at least surpass his teammate Lance Stroll, as the Canadian steered the carefully tested and updated AMR22 to only 18th place.
Alex Alban set up his Williams friend Nicholas Latifi to complete the last row of the grid.
Position Driver Team time difference 1 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1’18.750 – 2 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1’19.073 0.323 3 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1’19.166 0.416 4 George Russell Mercedes 1’19.393 1’19.393 1’19.393 1’19.393 1’19 1’19.393 1’19.393 1’19.393 0.64 ‘Red Bull 0.64 Red Bull 0.64’9 Mercedes 1’19.512 0.762 7 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo / Ferrari 1’19.608 0.858 8 Kevin Magnussen Haas / Ferrari 1’19.682 0.932 9 Daniel Ricciardo McLaren / Mercedes 1’20,297 1,547 10 Mick Schumacher Haas / Ferrari 1’20,368 1,618 11 Lando Norris McLaren / Mercedes 1’20,471 1,721 12 Esteban Ocon Alpine / Renault 1’20,638 1,888 13 Yuki Tsunoda Alphatauri / Red Bull 1’20,639 1,889 14 Pierre Gasly Alphatauri / Red Bull 1’20.861 2.111 Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin / Mercedes 1’20.954 2.204 17 Fernando Alonso Alpine / Renault 1’21.043 2.293 18 Lance Stroll Aston Martin / Mercedes 1’21.418 2.668 19 Months Alexander Albon5 William. 3,165 th most common
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