125cc champion Marc Marquez claimed his first Moto2 pole position, and ended Stefan Bradl's unbeaten run, with a commanding performance at Silverstone.
With the threat of rain hanging in the air, most of the top riders went for fast times early on, and Marquez was able to spend most of the session at the top.
He eventually improved his time to a 2m08.101s, which put him three quarters of a second clear of the field for a while.
Scott Redding was second for the majority of qualifying, the Marc VDS rider giving himself something to smile about as he returned to the front row on home ground after a run of tough races. He got the gap to Marquez down to 0.497sec in the end.
For a while it looked like not only would Bradl see his run of poles come to an end, but he would not even make it onto the front row until he salvaged third with his final run.
Jules Cluzel, Simone Corsi and Michele Pirro will start from the second row, ahead of Aleix Espagaro, Randy Krummenacher, Mike di Meglio and Alex de Angelis.
While Redding took second on the grid, it was an extremely tough session for Britain's other big hope Bradley Smith. Persistent technical problems saw his Tech 3 stuttering around the circuit and struggling to get a time in, and it was only after huge efforts by both rider and team that he was able to salvage 28th.