Lewis Hamilton is hoping for "something spicy" tomorrow to fire up the Canadian Grand Prix after admitting Sebastian Vettel "is gone".
After claiming pole position on each of the three occasions he has raced at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, there was never much hope of a fourth as Vettel proved he has a car for all tracks.
The entertaining Montreal venue was expected to fall into McLaren's hands, but Hamilton starts fifth and team-mate Jenson Button a year-low seventh.
As Button remarked after qualifying: "With Lewis not on pole it means something isn't quite right."
Hamilton finished half a second adrift of Vettel, with Button eight tenths of a second off the pace of the reigning champion who made it six poles from seven races this season, and 21 in his career.
Vettel now stands 10th on F1's all-time list for number of poles, with only Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, Jim Clark, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Juan Manuel Fangio, Mika Hakkinen, Niki Lauda and Nelson Piquet ahead of him.
"Vettel's gone, he's on his way, they're very, very hard for us to catch at this rate," said Hamilton.
"We are just very slow this weekend. It appears the other guys may have made a step forward because I pushed beyond the limit.
"I was just on such a ragged edge, and I think I even touched the wall at one stage. I literally got everything I could from it.
"I don't think I've ever driven the car so hard in my life really."
There were, however, mixed messages emerging from McLaren as team principal Martin Whitmarsh had suggested before qualifying that with rain forecast tomorrow they were leaning towards a wet set-up for the car.
Hamilton, however, disputed that, adding: "I'm not going to do the rain dance tonight. I hope it's going to be dry tomorrow.
"If it does rain then that can make the race unpredictable, with lots of different things going on, commotion, pit stops.
"So I hope something spicy happens. You can't always have pole here, but it doesn't mean you can't win."
Button, asked whether the car had been set up for the wet, replied: "No, not specifically.
"We just didn't have the pace we thought we would. We always know our race pace is better than qualifying, but surprised to be where we are? Yes.
"We're a long way off where we expected to be. Lewis has not been off pole here, so it does show you where we are."
The top three of Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa - the latter duo giving Ferrari their best qualifying result of the year - all believe rain will play a part tomorrow, with the forecast suggesting a 60% chance.
"The main task is tomorrow, and conditions are very likely to change as we are due to see some rain, with the question being when and how much." said Vettel.
After crashing his car for the second time this season in the first practice session, only to recover by claiming pole, Vettel added: "I had a rough start.
"I just have to avoid making it a habit of crashing the car on a Friday ahead of putting it on pole on Saturday."
Alonso, on the front row for the first time since last season's Singapore Grand Prix, said: "This is a much better result than we expected.
"It's looking good, but as Seb has said, the conditions may change, and maybe this will be the least important qualifying of the year."
As for Massa, the Brazilian delivering his best qualifying display since September and last year's Italian Grand Prix, said: "It has been a very good weekend up until now for us.
"I'm happy with the car, with the team, and I think we did a good job, but as the others have said, maybe the weather tomorrow will be different than today."
Mark Webber starts fourth in his Red Bull, with the Mercedes duo of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher either side of Button in sixth and eighth.
Paul di Resta out-qualified Force India team-mate Adrian Sutil for the sixth time in seven races this year and will start 11th.
The grid will have a full complement of 24 cars as stewards have allowed Virgin's Jerome D'Ambrosio to race despite finishing outside the 107% time limit.