Australian Mark Webber completed an impressive hat-trick of pole positions yesterday when he clocked the fastest time for Red Bull in qualifying for today's Turkish Grand Prix.
The 33-year-old drivers' championship leader, winner of the last two races in Spain and Monaco, has now claimed four poles this season and five in his career - and the Red Bull team have taken all seven this season.
He will be chasing a hat-trick of victories in today's 58-lap race in a bid to jump clear at the top of the scrap for the drivers' title.
Webber is currently leading on 78 points level with his 22-year-old German team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who qualified third behind 2008 champion Lewis Hamilton of McLaren.
Hamilton's fully-committed effort meant he split the Red Bull pace-setters and claimed a front row start for the first time this year.
Webber was satisfied after a struggle to find a good set-up at the Istanbul Park circuit.
He said: "It hasn't been the smoothest of weekends for us in terms of getting the running in. Getting ready for 'quali' things started to get a little bit better.
"I was a little bit on the back foot going in to be honest, but I knew if I dug deep it could be OK. And it worked out for us."
Hamilton's McLaren team-mate and defending champion Jenson Button was fourth ahead of comeback kid Michael Schumacher who span off the circuit and into the gravel on his final fast lap in qualifying.
Schumacher's Mercedes team-mate and fellow-German Nico Rosberg was sixth ahead of Pole Robert Kubica, of Renault, with Brazilian Felipe Massa eighth for Ferrari. His team-mate, Fernando Alonso, was only down in 12th.
On a warm, but overcast day in Istanbul, the three new teams were all eliminated in the Q1 opening mini-session together with under-pressure Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi of the Force India team. In Q2, it was Vettel on top again as he was in Q1 and in the morning free practice session.
The shock was in seeing Ferrari's two-times world champion Fernando Alonso failing to make the cut to the top ten shoot-out.
Alonso, who ran over a white line and suffered a big wobbly moment as he ran towards turn 12, could only end up 12th. It was the second consecutive race weekend in which Alonso had suffered a mistake in qualifying - he started from the pit lane after crashing at Monaco.
The Spaniard said: "I pushed very hard in that lap. Anyway, I was slower than my fastest lap. I knew it was not enough. I don't think that moment cost me a place in Q3.
"I did three laps in mainly the same time and I think the pace was not there."