Dani Pedrosa took a dominant pole position for the MotoGP race at Barcelona, smashing Casey Stoner's qualifying lap record from 2008 in the process.
The factory Honda rider went seven tenths clear of the field with his best lap on his final run.
His 1m40.893s was nearly 0.3 seconds faster than Stoner's record, which was set when qualifying tyres were still used in MotoGP.
Pedrosa's chasers were able to trim the gap by only another tenth of a second. Jorge Lorenzo briefly stole second place from Cal Crutchlow, but the Briton took it back seconds later.
Lorenzo's session was not straightforward, as he abandoned his first run with a clutch problem.
After some animated discussions with his Yamaha crew he returned to the track with just enough time to put a run together and get onto the front row for Sunday's race.
Alvaro Bautista was another to shine late in the Q2 session to take fourth, and he will lead the second row of the grid ahead of Nicky Hayden and Marc Marquez.
Valentino Rossi's qualifying struggles continued, and he could only manage the seventh-best time.
Pos Rider Team/Bike Time Gap
1. Dani Pedrosa Honda 1m40.893s
2. Cal Crutchlow Tech 3 Yamaha 1m41.501s +0.608s
3. Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha 1m41.566s +0.673s
4. Alvaro Bautista Gresini Honda 1m41.714s +0.821s
5. Nicky Hayden Ducati 1m41.800s +0.907s
6. Marc Marquez Honda 1m41.842s +0.949s
7. Valentino Rossi Yamaha 1m41.959s +1.066s
8. Andrea Iannone Pramac Ducati 1m41.963s +1.070s
9. Andrea Dovizioso Ducati 1m42.053s +1.160s
10. Stefan Bradl LCR Honda 1m42.090s +1.197s
11. Bradley Smith Tech 3 Yamaha 1m42.548s +1.655s
12. Aleix Espargaro Aspar Aprilia 1m42.878s +1.985s
13. Randy de Puniet Aspar Aprilia 1m43.186s +2.293s
14. Michele Pirro Pramac Ducati 1m43.330s +2.437s
15. Hector Barbera Avintia FTR-Kawasaki 1m43.659s +2.766s
16. Colin Edwards Forward FTR-Kawasaki 1m43.983s +3.090s
17. Karel Abraham Cardion Aprilia 1m44.362s +3.469s
18. Danilo Petrucci Ioda-Suter-BMW 1m44.369s +3.476s
19. Claudio Corti Forward FTR-Kawasaki 1m44.603s +3.710s
20. Michael Laverty PBM-Aprilia 1m44.630s +3.737s
21. Yonny Hernandez PBM Aprilia 1m44.913s +4.020s
22. Bryan Staring Gresini FTR-Honda 1m45.441s +4.548s
23. Lukas Pesek Ioda-Suter-BMW 1m46.302s +5.409s
24. Javier del Amor Avintia FTR-Kawasaki 1m48.952s +8.059s