The championship leader bagged his third pole of the season, denying Ferrari and Carlos Sainz a chance to lead the field away on Sunday despite the Spaniard heading both Q1 and Q2.
Verstappen had struggled with the balance of his RB20 throughout the weekend so far, but incrementally drew closer to the front as Red Bull dialled the car in to the peculiarities of the Albert Park circuit.
Continuous set-up tweaks ensured that, by the time Q3 had rolled around, Verstappen was able to deliver a hammer blow to Ferrari's hopes of securing a first pole position of 2024 - and ended the day with a 1m15.915s that Sainz was unable to beat.
"I think so far this weekend, it has been a bit tough to find a good balance in the car - and even throughout qualifying, Q1, Q2, I didn't really feel like fighting for pole," Verstappen explained.
"But then we made some little tickles on the car, and that seemed to help me in Q3 to really push it to the limit. And both of my laps, I felt quite happy with it.
"There's always things that you can improve, but overall, I'm very satisfied with the performance."
Source: Autosport