Nico Rosberg stunned Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton to take pole position for today's Canadian Grand Prix.
Hamilton appeared unstoppable in practice, comfortably leading the way, and seemed so again after the first two qualifying periods at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
But the Briton was denied a fourth pole in eight attempts at Montreal as championship rival Rosberg pulled a rabbit out of the hat in the top-10 shoot-out to edge Hamilton by 0.079secs.
Hamilton's first flying lap in Q1 saw him make a mistake into turn one, but he soon made amends to finish the session three-quarters of a second quicker than Rosberg.
By the end of Q2 the deficit between the duo had been cut to four-tenths of a second, and come the final blast Rosberg countered to lead the way by just 0.068secs after the first run.
On the second and final hot lap Hamilton had the edge after the first sector, but a lock-up into turn eight in the second sector cost him dear to leave Rosberg leading away the field for the second successive race.
Reigning four-times champion Sebastian Vettel was the best of the rest, albeit seven-tenths of a second adrift of Rosberg, such is the gap betweenNico Mercedes and Red Bull.
Williams pair Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa, who have looked strong this weekend, will start fourth and fifth ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in his Red Bull.
Ferrari pair Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, who had seemed set to challenge here, could only manage seventh and 10th places.
Sandwiched in between the pair will be Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne and Jenson Button in his McLaren.
The Force India duo of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez start 11th and 13th, either side of Kevin Magnussen in his McLaren.
Magnussen finished less than a tenth of a second slower than team-mate Button, yet finished four places behind him as the 34-year-old was eighth quickest in Q2.
Lotus' Romain Grosjean lines up 14th ahead of Daniil Kvyat in his Toro Rosso and Sauber's Adrian Sutil.
Pastor Maldonado's run of rotten luck shows no sign of ending as the Venezuelan pulled his Lotus off track towards the end of Q1.He will start 17th.
Max Chilton missed out on a place in Q2 by just over a tenth of a second to underline Marussia's recent improvement, with the Briton to line up 18th ahead of team-mate Jules Bianchi.
Caterham, now almost a second off the pace of Marussia, have Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericcson in 20th and 21st respectively.
Ericsson brought a premature end to Q1, albeit only by 16 seconds. He lost control of his car at the turn eight/nine chicane, where he smashed into a wall, breaking off the rear left wheel.
Esteban Gutierrez will start at the back of the grid after failing to take part in qualifying following an earlier crash in final practice in his Sauber.
The Mexican spun 180 degrees through the turn three/four chicane before slamming sideways into a barrier, sustaining chassis damage that could not be repaired in time by his team.
Rosberg, who has never started higher than fourth in previous years, knows he has struck a psychological blow over Hamilton.
"I know it's a track where Lewis is really strong, so I'm very happy it has worked out," said Rosberg.
"It has been a fantastic day, and through the weekend we have been progressing all the time and I'm in the best position for tomorrow."
Hamilton, meanwhile, knew he had been beaten fair and square on this occasion. He said: "Nico did a fantastic job, so congratulations to him.
"My final lap was not particularly bad, it just wasn't the greatest qualifying.
"Sometimes you have a good qualifying, sometimes you have bad qualifying.
"It's a great to get a one-two for the team, a fantastic performance. Let's hope we can make history tomorrow."
That was with reference to the fact that a one-two in the race will set a new F1 record of six in a row.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article