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Britain's Cal Crutchlow took a comfortable pole position for Sunday's FIM Superbike World Championship round at Valencia to prevent home favourite Carlos Checa topping the timesheets.
Crutchlow powered his Yamaha round the four-mile track in one minute 33.615 seconds, over two tenths of a second clear of Checa, with the pair joined on the front row by Italy's Max Biaggi and another Briton, Leon Haslam.
That represented an especially pleasing result for Haslam, who had endured a nervous wait to even confirm his participation in the Superpole 3 shoot-out after the timing screens for SP2 initially failed to update and showed him one place outside the qualifying spots in ninth.
Australian Troy Corser, Haslam's Suzuki colleague Sylvain Guintoli, British Honda rider Jonathan Rea and Lorenzo Lanzi of Italy - who fell in SP3 - line up on row two, with James Toseland ninth after being edged out of the final session by just one thousandth of a second.
Checa had set the early pace in the first session and was tipped as the man to watch in the shoot-out, with Biaggi fastest in the second session and Crutchlow well down the field.
But the Coventry rider came good when it mattered most, his single flying lap proving sufficient to leave him at the head of the field for the first of Sunday's two races.
Corser's fifth place represents BMW's best qualifying position to date, while Toseland will be followed by further big names, with Ducati pair Michel Fabrizio 10th and Noriyuki Haga following in 11th.
Shane Byrne and Jakub Smrz failed to make the most of their pre-Superpole third and fourth positions and will start 12th and 14th - sandwiching Aprilia's Leon Camier after the Britain produced another disappointing qualifying display.
A spectacular mechanical malfunction in SP2 left Ten Kate Honda's Max Neukirchner in 16th, having previously edged out Ruben Xaus by a thousandth of a second to qualify from the opening session.
South African Sheridan Morais crashed in SP1, failing to register a time, and will thus start from 20th place.
Cal Crutchlow, Yamaha Sterilgarda World Superbike Team (1st, 1'33.615)
"It was good last year in Supersport, we had ten poles in total and we've now started the tally with two for this season which is great. The team have worked really hard this weekend as it's been difficult for us, quite like Australia, the grip level is not so good which is where we struggle. We went to Portugal and we had a lot of grip and the bike was fantastic, we've come here and it's hard work again but we're getting there. We'll have another late night tonight and then I'll look forward to the race tomorrow, it's alright doing one fast lap but 23 is a different story. I think we surprised a few people today, I used the same tyres in the first qualification session today as I used yesterday, finishing in 15th but I wasn't so worried. I knew if we could work through the stages we would be ok for the pole."
