The Mexican driver bolted to the top with his final flying lap of Q3 on the Jeddah Corniche Circuit as he romped to a weekend-best 1m28.200s to triumph over the strong Ferraris.
That meant the late improvement of Leclerc, as the free practice pacesetter finally had an answer to Sainz in qualifying, missed out on consecutive pole positions by just 0.025s.
Sainz, meanwhile, will head the second row after the Q1 and Q2 topper, who had headed the leader board after the first runs in the Q3 10-minute dogfight, could not put together one final flier and so slipped to third by two tenths compared to his team-mate.
A messy Q3 showing for defending champion Max Verstappen returned fourth place, with the Red Bull driver struggling initially in Q3 as he battled oversteer while applying the throttle out of Turn 2.
Esteban Ocon ran to fifth for Alpine as the French car and driver combination dropped eight tenths to the leaders but pipped Mercedes driver George Russell and Fernando Alonso.
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