Craig Lowndes followed up his Saturday Eastern Creek victory by beating his Triple Eight Holden team-mate Jamie Whincup to pole position for race two at the Sydney track.
It was Ford Performance Racing's Will Davison who was first to show his hand in the decisive charge on soft tyres at the end of the session, before Whincup hit the front on a 1m29.3821s.
But the champion's tenure on provisional pole lasted just a few seconds as Lowndes came through to depose him with a 1m29.2493s. Lowndes goes into Sunday afternoon's race chasing a fourth straight win.
Jason Bright burst through to third for Brad Jones Racing - his best qualifying performance of 2012 and a big improvement over his Saturday pace.
The FPR cars of points leader Mark Winterbottom and Davison had to settle for the final top five spots.