Marc Marquez turned the fastest lap ever by a motorcycle at Silverstone to take the 28th pole of his short premier class career and his sixth of this 2015 season.
The Spaniard was quick in the early stages of qualifying, beating his own 2013 pole record lap on his very first flying lap, and staying fast as qualifying continued, beating Movistar Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo who was considered the favorite for the pole after leading the two free practice sessions leading up to qualifying. Lorenzo will start second on the grid in Sunday's race after he too beat the old pole record.
Marquez's Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa set his fastest lap on his first flying lap to complete an all-Spanish front row for the British round.
Starting fourth will be Valentino Rossi after his best lap in qualifying was 0.713 seconds behind the top time of Marquez. The Italian was able to better his time from practice by over a full second, but he was still 0.4 seconds behind his Yamaha teammate and immediate title rival, Jorge Lorenzo.
Leading the Satellite entries was Pol Espargaro aboard his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 bike, equalling his best qualifying result of this season (from Assen) as he will start from the second row alongside his teammate Bradley Smith - the top British rider on the grid for Sunday's race.
Scott Redding completed his best qualifying performance since Austin aboard the EG 0,0 Marc VDS bike; he will start from the front of the third row after qualifying seventh. Cal Crutchlow put the LCR Honda eighth on the grid, making himself the third British rider in the front three rows for Sunday's British Grand Prix.
Completing the third row alongside the two British riders of Redding and Crutchlow will be Ducati Team's Andrea Iannone.
Aleix Espargaro of Team Suzuki Ecstar and Yonny Hernandez of Octo Pramac Racing as well as Andrea Dovizioso will start from the fourth row.
Loris Baz with start 15th on the grid as the leading Open class entry aboard the Forward Racing bike, with Jack Miller the top Open Honda rider.
The two Honda-powered Aspar MotoGP Team bikes will start 19th and 21st respectively, with Eugene Laverty besting his more-experienced teammate in qualifying Nicky Hayden for the seventh time this season.
Follow @VAVELMotoGP on Twitter for continued coverage of the Octo British Grand Prix this weekend from Silverstone.
Aaron Durant is the editor of the VAVEL USA Racing section. Follow him on Twitter at @DoubleA291.