Oscar Piastri has secured the first pole position of his Formula One career, setting rivals on notice with two sizzling laps on the eve of the Chinese Grand Prix.
Piastri was second to Lewis Hamilton in Saturday's sprint race, with the F1 veteran taking a shot at "yapping" critics after delivering the first win of his Ferrari career.
But the Australian, who qualified second fastest in Melbourne and ultimately finished the season-opening race in ninth, edged Mercedes rival George Russell and McLaren teammate Lando Norris in qualifying for Sunday's race.
Piastri produced a time of 1 minute 30.703 seconds early in the decisive pole shootout and improved to 1m 30.641s with his second effort, giving him pole ahead of Russell by just under one-tenth of a second.
Norris will start third, despite leading the first segments of qualifying (Q1 and Q3).
The Brit pitted on his final lap after a couple of mistakes - continuing a scrappy weekend - but still bettered the efforts of Red Bull's Max Verstappen (fourth), Hamilton (fifth) and Charles Leclerc (sixth)
Piastri won two races in 2024, and has previously had sprint poles.
But the 56-lap race beginning on Sunday at 6pm (AEDT) will be the first time he starts at the top of the grid in any grand prix.
"The laps were a little bit scruffy, but I'm just pumped," Piastri said.
"Q3, I just found a lot of pace. Q1 and Q2 I was definitely struggling, the car came alive in Q3 and I came alive."
McLaren chief executive Zak Brown said it was "awesome" to see Piastri's first pole.
"He's been close, a lot of front rows, and that was a mega lap," Brown said.
Hamilton's off-season shift from Mercedes was widely tipped to shake up the circuit.
An underwhelming start in Melbourne, where he finished 10th, had some pundits revisiting their predictions for the seven-time world champion.
But the 40-year-old, a record six-time winner on the Shanghai International Circuit, was far too good in Saturday's 19-lap tussle.
Piastri crossed the line 6.8 seconds behind Hamilton in the sprint. Norris started sixth and finished eighth.
Jack Doohan's poor start to the season continued in the sprint, when he was called to the stewards' room then handed a 10-second time penalty and two penalty points on his licence.
Doohan sent fellow rookie Gabriel Bortoleto into a spin on the final lap, with stewards finding the Australian was to blame for the collision.
"I went for a move on the last lap at turn 14, it didn't exactly go to plan," Doohan said, later qualifying 18th for Sunday.
"I need to have a look into it and see what happened so that it doesn't happen again."
Hamilton delighted in his first victory in red, having kept tabs on those judging Ferrari's anticlimactic start to the season.
"I really do feel a lot of people underestimated the really steep climb it is to get into a new team, to become acclimatised within a team," he said.
"The amount of critics and people I've heard yapping along the way just clearly not understanding, maybe because they've not had the experience or are just unaware.
"Rome wasn't built in a day."
Piastri, who passed Verstappen on lap 15 to claim second in the sprint, had mixed feelings but was clearly disappointed to not be the one to take the win from pole position, given McLaren's pace advantage.
"We, in hindsight, would have done a few things a bit differently in qualifying," Piastri said.
