McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton will start on pole for Sunday's US Grand Prix, after beating team-mate and world champion Fernando Alonso in qualifying.
Hamilton is chasing his second straight victory
The 22-year-old Briton clocked a fastest time of one minute 12.331 seconds, 0.169secs ahead of Alonso, to claim his second pole in as many races.
Alonso was fastest in practice and the first two qualifying sessions but lost out in the third at Indianapolis.
The Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen will make up the second row.
German teenager Sebastian Vettel finished an impressive seventh, filling in for injured BMW-Sauber driver Robert Kubica.
Afterwards, a clearly delighted Hamilton admitted he was rather surprised to find himself on the second pole position of his fledgling career.
"I'm quite surprised to be honest," said Hamilton, who leads the world championship standings, eight points ahead of his team-mate.
"Going into qualifying we hadn't found the optimum set-up and I knew Fernando was quick here.
"It's good to see we're ahead of the Ferraris. I had to pull it all out but my last two laps in third qualifying were just right."
Just to rub in his supremacy, Hamilton improved his provisional pole on the final lap, having seen Alonso fail to better the provisional pole time on his own last lap.
But the Spaniard was keen to look for positives from his display.
I'm pretty satisfied and think we can have a strong race
"It's a good weekend for me now," he said.
"I was fastest in practice and in qualifying one and two, but not in qualifying three.
"But being fastest all weekend has given me a lot of confidence - we'll have a strong race on Sunday."
Sunday's race will be the third consecutive grand prix with an all-McLaren front row.
Ferrari's Massa said: "We are a bit closer but it is not enough, we need to be in front.
"For sure the situation is better than Canada. We can't be completely happy but we mustn't be hard on ourselves either. I'm pretty satisfied and think we can have a strong race."
Qualifying results for US Grand Prix:
1 L Hamilton (GB) McLaren 1:12.331
2 F Alonso (Spn) McLaren 1:12.500
3 F Massa (Brz) Ferrari 1:12.703
4 K Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 1:12.839
5 N Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 1:12.847
6 H Kovalainen (Fin) Renault 1:13.308
7 S Vettel (Ger) BMW Sauber 1:13.513
8 J Trulli (Ita) Toyota 1:13.789
9 M Webber (Aus) RedBull-Renault 1:13.871
10 G Fisichella (Ita) Renault 1:13.953
11 D Coulthard (GB) RedBull-Renault 1:12.873
12 R Schumacher (Ger) Toyota 1:12.920
13 J Button (GB) Honda 1:12.998
14 N Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota 1:13.060
15 R Barrichello (Brz) Honda 1:13.201
16 A Davidson (GB) Super Aguri-Honda 1:13.259
17 A Wurz (Aut) Williams-Toyota 1:13.441
18 T Sato (Jpn) Super Aguri-Honda 1:13.477
19 V Liuzzi (Ita) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:13.484
20 S Speed (US) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:13.712
21 A Sutil (Ger) Spyker-Ferrari 1:14.122
22 C Albers (Ned) Spyker-Ferrari 1:14.597
Live coverage of Sunday's US Grand Prix on BBC Five Live and this website 1800 BST