The Dutchman had reeled off the fastest laptimes in all three practice sessions, and had headed Q1 by half a second over team-mate Sergio Perez as the result of qualifying appeared to be a foregone conclusion.
Verstappen suffered a slide on his first bid to set a competitive lap in Q2 and backed out of it to prepare for another effort but, as he spooled up, lost drive during the middle sector and reported that he could no longer accelerate.
He limped back to the garage, but his egress from the cockpit was immediate when it became clear he would not be able to continue with the session. The team later reported that a mechanical failure of his driveshaft was the culprit.
Given his terrifying advantage, Verstappen's ignominious end ensured that the battle for pole would largely be open season - although Perez had the whip hand thanks to Red Bull's overall pace.
It proved to be thus in the opening runs, and Perez galloped to a 1m28.265s to go nearly half a second faster than Charles Leclerc's best effort as the Monegasque had moved to the top after his first run.
This laid down the gauntlet for the other drivers to pick up, and Alonso was first to challenge - but lost around three tenths in the final sector to slot in behind Perez in the order.
Lance Stroll then set the best first sector of anyone, keeping tabs on Perez through the next part of the circuit, but shed half a second in the final part of the lap to throw away any chances of claiming a surprise pole.
Leclerc was the last serious contender to try and overhaul the Mexican, but was just 0.155s shy by the close of the lap - but it proved to be enough for the Ferrari driver to claim second over Alonso on the timesheets.
However, Leclerc will stare down the barrel of a 10-place grid penalty for the grand prix, having taken new control electronics for the second race of the season outside of his permissible allowance.
Perez's effort amid the opening runs of the session proved to be more than ample to earn his second ever pole position in F1 - his first having come at last year's race in Jeddah.
Alonso's best time was 0.465s shy of Perez and the Spaniard was thus third fastest, ahead of George Russell as the Briton was able to coax a competitive first sector time out of his Mercedes.
Carlos Sainz overcame a Q2 scare, in which he had to try another lap to break into the top 10, to claim the fifth fastest time with a devilish 0.666s deficit to pole. He starts alongside Russell on the second row owing to Leclerc's penalty, with Stroll fifth on Sunday's grid.
Ocon was seventh fastest from Hamilton, while Oscar Piastri made his first Q3 appearance in F1 and was ninth in the order, beating Pierre Gasly to a place on the fourth row of the grid once penalties have been applied.
Aside from Verstappen's issue in Q2, Gasly made a late escape from the drop zone having been pushed into the bottom five by Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg.
The German had been mired in 14th place after the first set of runs, but sprung into the top 10 to leave Gasly on the brink of needing to take an early bath.
By just 0.04s, Gasly pipped Hulkenberg to a place in Q3 in a closely fought session in which the top 14 were covered by just 1.033s
Piastri dumped Yuki Tsunoda out of qualifying at the flag during Q1, moments after the AlphaTauri driver had managed to push Alex Albon into the drop zone amid a late flurry of laps.
Conversely, Lando Norris was unable to progress having tapped the inside wall at Turn 27, immediately breaking his front-left suspension to force him into a quick retreat to the pitlane. Norris could not return to the circuit, ensuring he was 19th fastest in the session.
He was surrounded on the timing boards by Nyck de Vries, who spun on his first timed lap at the opening corner and later confessed to messing up the final corner on his last-gasp effort to try and break out of the bottom five.
Logan Sargeant propped up the order after losing his best laptime to track limits. Coming out of the final corner, the American crossed the line at the kink along the start-finish straight, costing him his 1m29.721s lap - which would have been good enough to get him into Q2.
Sargeant later spun on his next effort later on in the session, and then scuffed his final lap and reported an unspecified breakage - coming to rest at Turn 10 after pulling over.
Saudi Arabian GP: Full qualifying results
| Cla | Driver | Chassis | Engine | Time | Gap | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Sergio Perez |
 |
Red Bull | Red Bull | 1'28.265 | |
| 2 |  Fernando Alonso |
 |
Aston Martin | Mercedes | 1'28.730 | 0.465 |
| 3 |  George Russell |
 |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 1'28.857 | 0.592 |
| 4 | Carlos Sainz |
 |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 1'28.931 | 0.666 |
| 5 |  Lance Stroll |
 |
Aston Martin | Mercedes | 1'28.945 | 0.680 |
| 6 |  Esteban Ocon |
 |
Alpine | Renault | 1'29.078 | 0.813 |
| 7 | Lewis Hamilton |
 |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 1'29.223 | 0.958 |
| 8 |  Oscar Piastri |
 |
McLaren | Mercedes | 1'29.243 | 0.978 |
| 9 | Pierre Gasly |
 |
Alpine | Renault | 1'29.357 | 1.092 |
| 10 |  Nico Hulkenberg |
 |
Haas | Ferrari | 1'29.451 | 1.186 |
| 11 |  Zhou Guanyu |
 |
Alfa Romeo | Ferrari | 1'29.461 | 1.196 |
| 12 |  Charles Leclerc |
 |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 1'28.420 | 0.155 |
| 13 |  Kevin Magnussen |
 |
Haas | Ferrari | 1'29.517 | 1.252 |
| 14 |  Valtteri Bottas |
 |
Alfa Romeo | Ferrari | 1'29.668 | 1.403 |
| 15 |  Max Verstappen |
|
Red Bull | Red Bull | 1'49.953 | 21.688 |
| 16 |  Yuki Tsunoda |
 |
AlphaTauri | Red Bull | 1'29.939 | 1.674 |
| 17 |  Alex Albon |
 |
Williams | Mercedes | 1'29.994 | 1.729 |
| 18 | Nyck de Vries |
 |
AlphaTauri | Red Bull | 1'30.244 | 1.979 |
| 19 | Lando Norris |
 |
McLaren | Mercedes | 1'30.447 | 2.182 |
| 20 |  Logan Sargeant |
 |
Williams | Mercedes | 2'08.510 | 40.245 |
| View full results | ||||||
