Oscar Piastri beat title rival Lando Norris in a thrilling battle for pole position for the Dutch Grand Prix as McLaren again blew away the field at Zandvoort.
Norris has won three of the last four races to close within nine points of team-mate Piastri in the drivers’ championship with 10 rounds remaining.
But it was the Australian who came out on top in the qualifying scrap, delivering a sensational lap to beat Norris by just 0.012 seconds and claim his fifth pole of the season.
Norris played down talk that momentum was on his side ahead of the resumption following the summer break.
He had returned in commanding fashion, topping all three practice sessions, but – as so often this season – Piastri found the answer when he needed it.
Norris: “It was close, it has been close the whole weekend. Disappointed not to be on pole but it was close.
“I’m in a good position. We will have some fun tomorrow.”
McLaren’s dominance over the rest of the field set up a head-to-head shoot-out between the title protagonists and they exchanged fastest times throughout qualifying.
Norris laid down a marker in Q2 with a Zandvoort lap record but Piastri bettered that with his first run in Q3, to sit 12 thousandths of a second ahead of his team-mate.
The British driver could not respond and will hope to hit back on the run down to the first corner but will have to keep an eye on home favourite Max Verstappen, who put his Red Bull third on the grid.
The four-time world champion was 0.263 seconds off the pole pace and will have a tough task to keep the McLaren duo within range and delight the fervent Dutch support on Sunday.
Isack Hadjar was an impressive fourth for Racing Bulls with George Russell fifth for Mercedes and the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton seventh.
The seven-time world champion said on Thursday he was determined to enjoy his driving again, after describing himself as “absolutely useless” when he started and finished 12th in Hungary last time out.
Hamilton may struggle to find much joy in Ferrari’s pace this weekend, regularly over a second-and-a-half adrift during practice and his fastest lap was over seven tenths off the pole pace.
Lance Stroll suffered another moment to forget in the early stages of qualifying.
The Canadian walked away from a serious crash into the wall on Friday and was in trouble again at the start of Q1, dipping a wheel into the grass before careering nose-first into the barriers.
Attempts to fix his Aston Martin, which had shown genuine pace throughout the weekend, were in vain.
