Lewis Hamilton overcame a strong challenge from teammate Valtteri Bottas to claim his 75th career pole at the French Grand Prix in qualifying.
After rain had washed out final practice, the track was dry for the one-hour session to decide the grid for Sunday's race and in the all-important Q3, it was about punch and Counterpunch between the two Mercedes drivers for top spot.
Hamilton was the fastest man after the first runs, but Bottas would move back ahead with his second attempt only for a fastest final sector to be enough for the defending world champion to secure his first pole since the Spanish GP by just over a tenth of a second.
Sebastian Vettel tried to get involved in the battle for Ferrari but ultimately had to settle for third, almost four-tenths slower than Hamilton.
The two Red Bulls took advantage of a poor Q3 for Kimi Raikkonen to finish fourth and fifth as a low downforce package on Max Verstappen's proved the right way to go on setup, giving the Dutchman almost two-tenths advantage over Daniel Ricciardo.
Raikkonen made mistakes on all three of his flying laps and was then somewhat fortunate to escape penalty for blocking Kevin Magnussen on his final run but will still start in P6.
A crash for Romain Grosjean at Turn 3 would cause a red flag midway through the top 10 shootout, disadvantaging his Haas teammate Magnussen before his later incident with Raikkonen, and it would allow Carlos Sainz to claim seventh for Renault.
The star of qualifying was undoubtedly Charles Leclerc, however, as the Monegasque became the first Sauber driver since 2015 to make Q3 and would also benefit from Haas' issues to claim P8 on the grid.
Magnussen and Grosjean would complete the top 10.
Q2 was an interesting one with light rain causing some trouble for the drivers without wettening the track too much.
Still, both Mercedes' and both Red Bulls opted to use the slower Supersoft tyre, which they will start the race on, compared to the Ultrasoft on both Ferraris.
It was an incredible late lap by Leclerc, over half a second faster than his other laps, that saw him beat Esteban Ocon by just 0.02s to make Q3 and drop the Frenchman to P11 for Force India.
Nico Hulkenberg would also be within the same tenth but in 12th ahead of Sergio Perez and Pierre Gasly in the Toro Rosso.
Having not run but for a few laps before the rain in Practice 3 since his big crash on Friday morning, Marcus Ericsson also produced a good effort to put his Sauber into Q2 and finish P15.
Two teams not mentioned so far are McLaren and Williams and that's because their four cars made up all but one of the positions at the back of the grid, eliminated in Q1.
It was another bump back to earth for Fernando Alonso after his Le Mans victory a week ago, as the Spaniard was only 16th and will have his teammate Stoffel Vandoorne alongside in 17th.
The two Williams' also continue their problems, setting the slowest times of the session but both Sergey Sirotkin and Lance Stroll will move up one place as Brendon Hartley was only 17th fastest but takes a grid penalty for new engine components.
