Sebastian Vettel edged his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber to pole position for today's Hungarian Grand Prix after clocking the fastest time during qualifying yesterday.
The German celebrated his seventh pole of the season with a time of 1 min 18.773 seconds, just 0.4 seconds quicker than his Australian team-mate as the Red Bull cars were in a league of their own.
The 23-year-old set off from the front of the grid at last weekend's German Grand Prix only to suffer a poor getaway to finish third, and he said he was hopeful of making up for that this afternoon.
"We found the problem from last week that made the bad start so hopefully we can have a normal start here," Vettel told the BBC.
"Usually in Hungary it is important to be on the clean side. The start is important but there are 70 laps after that. It will be an exciting race."
Ferrari duo Spaniard Fernando Alonso and Brazilian Felipe Massa, almost a second slower, will start in third and fourth ahead of drivers' championship leader Lewis Hamilton of Mclaren.
Alonso, who won in Hockenheim last Sunday after Ferrari controversially arranged for the Spaniard to overtake his team-mate Massa, was impressed with Red Bull's performance.
"We found a big gap between Red Bull and us this weekend, so we maximised our potential today. We did our job which is to be best of the rest. Hopefully, we can make it a more difficult race for them because so far this weekend it has been too easy."
German Nico Rosberg was sixth quickest for Mercedes followed by Russian Vitaly Petrov who out-qualified his Renault team-mate Robert Kubica for the first time this season.
Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa, of Sauber, will start in ninth ahead of Williams driver Nico Hulkenberg.
Vettel led the Red Bull assault in the Q1 opening mini-session which saw Japan's Kamui Kobayashi, of Sauber, eliminated along with the three new teams.
Kobayashi appeared to have been held up by Bruno Senna, of Hispania, on his final flying lap and was pipped to the 17th fastest time in the final minute of the session by Force India's Adrian Sutil.
That meant he joined Timo Glock, of Virgin, Lotus drivers Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli, Lucas Di Grassi in the second Virgin and Senna ahead of his Hispania team-mate Sakon Yamamoto.
McLaren's worst fears were realised in Q2 when their defending drivers' world champion Jenson Button failed to make the top ten.
Button, who will start in 11th place today, told the BBC: "In practice I had good balance, but I struggled with the car in qualifying.
"I was OK on the prime tyres, but I couldn't get the options working. It's tough, but we were never going to be on the front two rows here. At least I'm on the clean side of the grid. We can still pick up good points."
He starts ahead of Rubens Barrichello in the second Williams, Sutil, Michael Schumacher in the second Mercedes, Sebastien Buemi, of Toro Rosso, Vitantonio Liuzzi in the second Force India, and Jaime Alguersuari in the second Toro Rosso.
Standings
Drivers
1. Hamilton 157 points, 2. Button 143, 3. Webber 136, 4. Vettel 136, 5. Alonso 123, 6. Rosberg 94, 7. Kubica 89, 8. Massa 85, 9. Schumacher 38, 10. Sutil 35, 11. Barrichello 29, 12. Kobayashi 15, 13. Liuzzi 12, 14. Petrov 7, 15. Buemi 7, 16. Alguersuari 3, 17. Hulkenberg 2.
Constructors
1. McLaren 300 points, 2. Red Bull 272, 3. Ferrari 208, 4. Mercedes GP 132, 5. Renault 96, 6. Force India 47, 7. Williams 31, 8. Sauber 15, 9. Toro Rosso 10.
Next race
Belgium Grand Prix - August 29.