Max Verstappen bounced back from his wretched practice performances to break Tifosi hearts be beating the Ferraris to pole at Imola.
But it was far from easy for the Dutchman who was given a stern challenge from four rivals in the final part of the session. In the end, he was faster than Oscar Piastri in the McLaren by less than one tenth of a second.
Lando Norris was third quickest and is well-placed to take the fight to Verstappen on track. Toto Wolff said McLaren had shown the best long run pace in practice, so Norris will hope that translates into a race pace that matches Red Bull's tomorrow.
Ferrari could only manage fourth and fifth, Charles Leclerc slightly faster than Carlos Sainz, despite the raucous support of the home crowd. George Russell was sixth, two places ahead of Lewis Hamilton who was beaten by Yuki Tsunoda who shined throughout the session.
The big-name casualty of Q1 was Fernando Alonso, who was lucky to even take part in the session. He smashed up his Aston Martin in practice on Saturday morning which left his engineers with a significant repair job which they only completed with minutes to spare.
But Alonso went off track on his first flying lap, and his second attempt was good enough only for the very last grid slot. He was joined by Kevin Magnussen, Zhou Guanyu, Logan Sargeant and Valtteri Bottas in the bottom five - and bumped up one place to 19th when Sargeant's lap time was deleted.
Alex Albon signed a new contract with Williams this week but couldn't celebrate that with a Q3 appearance. He was 14th fastest in Q2, quicker only than Pierre Gasly while Lance Stroll and Esteban Ocon were also out.
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It was left to a straight shootout between Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez for a place in the final part of the session. And the Aussie came out on top as both RB cars reached the top 10 at the expense of one of the sister Red Bull machines.
Tsunoda had gone third quickest in that middle part of the session and could have been a surprise contender for a maiden F1 pole. But seventh was all he could manage in the end, with Ricciardo two places further back ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in 10th.
Both McLaren and Ferrari cars were in the hunt for pole but in the end Verstappen just proved to be too quick. His best Q3 lap was barely quicker than the times put in by both McLarens, while the Ferraris were only slightly further off the pace.