Red Bull Racing threatened another front-row domination after putting their rivals in the shade in practice for tomorrow's Spanish Grand Prix, yesterday.
At the morning session it was McLaren who scored a one-two at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya, with Lewis Hamilton ahead of team-mate Jenson Button by over half-a-second.
But as the fuel loads came down in the 90-minute afternoon period, so did the times, with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber comfortably clear of their rivals.
A Red Bull car has been on pole in all four races this season, with Vettel leading Webber three to one, while the duo managed to lock out the front row in Australia and China.
Yet, despite such overwhelming superiority in qualifying, they have managed just one victory, much to the frustration of all within the team.
Another reproduction of this form in qualifying today and it is hard to look beyond another Red Bull success, especially when the last nine winners of this race have started from pole.
Vettel ended up quickest with a lap of one minute 19.965 seconds, 0.210 seconds faster than Webber, and 1.1 seconds better than Hamilton's best in the morning.
Michael Schumacher's renaissance continued as for the first time this season he finished quicker than Mercedes GP team-mate Nico Rosberg in both sessions yesterday.
Much has been made of the seven-time champion's woeful start to his comeback after three years in retirement, with many believing he should have remained at home with his family.
But since the last outing in Shanghai three weeks ago, the team have worked tirelessly on a car to suit Schumacher, notably providing him with a different chassis.
As in the morning, Schumacher was third overall in the afternoon, finishing 0.792secs behind Vettel, with Fernando Alonso giving his Spanish fans something to cheer about as he was a further 0.062secs down for Ferrari.
Hamilton was fifth with a time marginally slower than his morning run, with Renault's Robert Kubica, Rosberg and Ferrari's Felipe Massa occupying the next three places ahead of Button in ninth.
Adrian Sutil completed the top 10 in his Force India, but finished 1.5 seconds off the pace of German compatriot Vettel.
Nico Hulkenberg was involved in the only major incident of the two sessions, with the young German causing a red flag 21 minutes into the afternoon run.
Hulkenberg ran wide onto a gravel trap before catching astroturf that resulted in him slinging his Williams across the track and into a tyre wall.
The usual suspects occupied the bottom six places, with Lotus duo Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen at the head of the new boys, 4.2 secs and 4.9 secs adrift respectively.
Virgin Racing's Lucas di Grassi was 21st and team-mate Timo Glock 24th, the latter 6.631 seconds off Vettel, arguably due to the bigger fuel tank now fitted inside the latter car after a design fault they were unable to rectify over the first four races.
Hispania Racing pairing Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna sandwiched the Virgin boys, but were also a yawning six seconds behind.