Verstappen had comfortably topped Q2 and was a quarter of a second clear after his first representative effort in the final qualifying segment.

But he couldn't improve on his second run and was denied by Vettel in the dying seconds of the session, the German going 0.086s quicker.

"I am super annoyed," Verstappen conceded after qualifying. "You always try to go for pole position and Q2 was looking really good, in Q3 I couldn't switch the tyres on and couldn't go faster.

"This track is really slippery. For me, the front tyres were not working, a bit of understeer - in this track you need to turn quickly in the low-speed corners.

"Second is still a good place but after Q2 I had hoped for more."

Had he held on to first place, Verstappen would've become F1's youngest-ever pole-sitter, snatching the record from none other than Vettel.

The Dutchman said: "I gave it all – today [that] wasn't enough. I really wanted that pole position, but at least we have a good start position."

Verstappen's front row start remains provisional, however, as he is under investigation for having potentially impeded Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas on his first run in Q3.

Bottas was on his first flying lap in Q3 when he came up on the Dutchman's slowing Red Bull RB13 on approach to the Turn 13 left-hander, the Finn successfully avoiding Verstappen but locking up on corner entry as a consequence.

In the aftermath, Bottas hit out at Verstappen for "ruining" his lap, but the Red Bull driver insisted he hadn't done anything wrong.

Asked about the Bottas incident, he replied: "Which incident? I was on the inside, he was doing his line, and he locked up – so there is no incident."

In response to there being an investigation, Verstappen – who was highly critical of the FIA stewards last weekend after a penalty denied him a United States Grand Prix podium – added: "There can be [an investigation]. But for me there was no incident."

Additional reporting by Jonathan Noble