Valtteri Bottas threatened to ruin Lewis Hamilton's hopes of a record-breaking British Grand Prix triumph after beating his Mercedes team-mate to pole position.
Hamilton is a qualifying master here at Silverstone, having secured six poles here, but his Finnish partner pipped him to top spot by the narrowest of margins - 0.006seconds to be precise.
The result secures yet another Mercedes front-row lock-out in a season in which they have been head and shoulders above their title rivals.
It was Ferrari who led the challenge and Charles Leclerc put in a respectable performance to put his car third on the grid, finishing less than a tenth of a second behind the pace-setter to suggest the Italians have the speed to fight for victory on Sunday.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly split Leclerc and his team-mate Sebastian Vettel in sixth, while British teenager Lando Norris managed to bring his McLaren home in an impressive eighth in front of his home fans.
Ferrari had taken the fight to Mercedes in the second segment of qualifying as Leclerc, still searching for his maiden victory, put his red challenger at the top of the pile.
After Hamilton stole the show in Q1, it was Bottas who led the Mercedes charge in the second run-out, the Finn finishing just over a tenth of a second ahead of his history-chasing team-mate.
Leclerc's Ferrari partner Vettel sat in the drop zone in the latter stages of Q2 but delivered a clean lap that put him fifth, but it was misery for his team-mate from last year Kimi Raikkonen.
Raikkonen and Alfa Romeo partner Antonio Giovinazzi were among the five unfortunate drivers top drop out in Q2, while McLaren's Carlos Sainz was a shock elimination too.
Hamilton had earlier thrown down the early gauntlet by going quickest in the opening segment to the delight of the home Silverstone faithful who gave him a standing ovation throughout the afternoon.
But it was extremely tight at the top of the Q1 timesheets with less than two tenths of a second splitting the pace-setter and third-place Verstappen, who came home in his Red Bull behind Ferrari's Leclerc.
Behind them, the biggest casualty to fall out of qualifying at the first hurdle was Haas' Kevin Magnussen, the Dane unable to get a decisive flying lap under his belt that would have knocked Racing Point's Sergio Perez out.
Perez's struggling team-mate Lance Stroll saw his qualifying woes continue as he failed to make it out of Q1 for the 14th race in a row.
George Russell, meanwhile, was unable to give the British support something to cheer about and dropped out in 19th - but he did at least continue his record of beating Williams team-mate Robert Kubica.
