The German knew he needed to pull something special out of the bag on his final Q3 effort as Max Verstappen had produced a brilliant first lap in the top 10 shootout.

But after a purple first sector, Vettel says he had a moment at the tricky second-gear Turn 6 right-hander, which forced him to drop down to first in his bid to recover.

Luckily for him, he lost very little time and was able to get going again, finishing his lap to steal pole position from Verstappen by just 0.086 seconds.

Speaking about the effort needed to beat Max Verstappen, Vettel said: "He was very quick in Q2, I don't know where he pulled that from – we had to stretch all of us.

"It is difficult out here. The altitude has an effect on the asphalt and its ageing and it makes it slippery – and then he goes four tenths quicker than anybody else. So I thought how do I do that?

"I thought if I had a clean first sector it would be good, but then I had a moment in Turn 6. I nearly lost the car, and had to go down to first gear, but I managed to get it through there without any time loss.

"Then I was able to push until the end. After the line I knew it would be close, but I didn't know what the others were doing. When I heard it was enough it was like an explosion in the car. I had one yesterday with the extinguisher – but today was a real one!"

Vettel knows that despite his 50th pole position in F1, rival Lewis Hamilton only needs to finish fifth to secure himself the drivers' world championship.

Speaking about the approach and how he would feel winning the race where he lost the title, Vettel said: "We don't need to debate what is the bigger cup. We do our race and there is not much point in looking at what others are doing. The position we are in, we need to maximise our pace."