Sebastian Vettel took advantage of one small error from Kimi Raikkonen to claim his second pole in a week at the Chinese GP on Saturday.
The Finn had led his Ferrari teammate all through the qualifying session but the failure to improve his last sector on the final run was enough for Vettel to beat the 2007 world champion by 0.087s, with a 1m31.095s.
It marks the first time the Scuderia has achieved back-to-back front row lockouts since the Michael Schumacher era in 2006 as Mercedes had no answer.
Valtteri Bottas was again the lead Silver Arrow in third, half a tenth clear of Lewis Hamilton as the world champion struggled with understeer in the slow-speed corners.
Red Bull once again fill the third row with Max Verstappen becoming the first man to out-qualify Daniel Ricciardo in Shanghai but fall just short of splitting the two Mercedes.
Nico Hulkenberg put Renault at the head of the midfield in seventh ahead of Sergio Perez as Force India enjoyed their best qualifying of the season so far.
Carlos Sainz was ninth with Romain Grosjean recovering from a difficult practice to complete the top 10 for Haas.
At the start of the session, the main story was whether Red Bull would finish installing a new engine into the back of Daniel Ricciardo's car after the turbo failure in final practice and, to the Australian's relief, he emerged with three minutes to go and would just make it through in 14th.
Then attention switched to those in danger with the surprise casualty being Pierre Gasly in 17th for Toro Rosso, missing out on the second part of qualifying by just 0.088s.
Sergey Sirotkin was even more unlucky as he was less than half a tenth down on the 15th best time as the Russian continues to be a bright point for Williams.
His teammate Lance Stroll was 18th as the two Saubers completed the grid with Charles Leclerc recovering from a spin on his first run to finish almost half a second clear of Marcus Ericsson.
In Q2, Mercedes and Ferrari opted to run the more durable Soft compound tyre as that would then become the tyre they started the race on, and despite a nervy first run for Hamilton, he would dramatically improve on his second as the four drivers all made it safely into the top 10.
Red Bull stayed on the Ultrasoft rubber, which could well give an advantage in the first stint on Sunday creating an interesting battle.
In the midfield battle, Carlos Sainz left it until the last moment to squeak in by just 0.016s at the expense of Kevin Magnussen in the Haas.
Esteban Ocon was 12th as a plan by the two McLaren's to give a slipstream down the back straight didn't work with Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne 13th and 14th, just as they were a week ago in Bahrain.
Brendon Hartley completed the Q2 order in 15th.
