Red Bull continued their domination of qualifying this season as Mark Webber made it six in a row for the Milton Keynes-based team.
Following his lights-to-flag win in last Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix, Webber will now start hot favourite to make it two victories in a row after grabbing pole for Sunday's blue-riband race around Monaco.
But there is no Red Bull lock-out of the front row as Robert Kubica, driving for Enstone's Renault F1 team produced a stunning performance around the streets of the principality to grab second spot ahead of Sebastian Vettel.
Webber produced an astonishing time of one minute 13.826 seconds, the only driver to dip under 74 seconds over the past few days, beating Kubica by a quarter of a second.
Behind Vettel comes Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren as the Woking marque failed to find the sweet spot around a track where they have won 15 times since 1984.
Nico Rosberg edged out Michael Schumacher in the duel of the Brackley-based Mercedes duo for sixth and seventh, with last year's winner Jenson Button a lowly eighth, followed by Rubens Barrichello in a Grove-built Williams.
Vitantonio Liuzzi starts 10th for the Silverstone-based Force India team after outqualifying team-mate Adrian Sutil for the first time this season.
Fernando Alonso's crash in final practice earlier in the day, leaving his Ferrari team with no time to repair the chassis, guaranteed him last place on the grid, although he will start from the pit lane.
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