Lewis Hamilton lit up the Mercedes garage by grabbing his first pole position for the team since joining the Brackley-based team at the start of the year.
For the 27th time in his Formula One career, Hamilton will lead away the field come the start of tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit.
Joining the 27-year-old on the front row will be Kimi Raikkonen in his Lotus ahead of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Nico Rosberg in his Mercedes.
With Alonso ahead of Felipe Massa, who starts from fifth on the grid, it meant the double world champion avoided being out-qualified by a team-mate five times in succession for what would have been the first time in his 200-race career.
Lotus’ Romain Grosjean joins Massa on row three, with Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo a superb seventh, his second best qualifying place of his career.
Behind the Australian will be McLaren’s Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel in his Red Bull, who had started on pole in the opening two races.
However, both men made a strategy call by running in Q3 on the harder medium compound compared to the faster, but more highly degradable soft Pirelli tyre as used by those ahead of them.
It means the frontrunners will have to pit early, whereas Button and Vettel can run longer on the medium and wait until very late in the race to run the soft rubber.
In the top 10 for the first time this season with new team Sauber is Nico Hulkenberg who starts from 10th.
A naturally delighted Hamilton, the only driver to win this race twice in its nine-year history, described himself as “ecstatic”.
Hamilton added: “It’s an incredible feeling, I’m so happy to have first place.
“The lap was great, but then the team have performed well all weekend and I obviously now hope we can carry that through to tomorrow.”
Hamilton, however, appreciates the tyre situation will be tricky, adding: “Making the option (soft) last has been impossible, so it will mean an early stop.
“But we’ve shown great race pace on the medium, and although it will be a really tough race, I’m hoping we can maintain our position.”
Asked as to why Mercedes did not follow the strategy adopted by McLaren and Red Bull for Button and Vettel, Hamilton said: “We have great strategists and I trust them.
“They make the decision and we stick by them, but whatever strategy you are on, you are going to struggle on the option tyre whether you are on high or low fuel.”
It wasn’t such a good day for Silverstone-based Force India pair Paul Di Resta and Adrian Sutil.
Both of them had looked strong in practice for a top-10 place, but went out in Q2.
Di Resta missed out by 0.026secs to Hulkenberg.