Lewis Hamilton set Silverstone alight by claiming pole position for the British Grand Prix.
The Englishman scorched around in a time of one minute 19.997 seconds for his third pole in four races.
Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari will also start from the front row after he set a time 0.102secs behind, with Hamilton's team-mate Fernando Alonso third and Felipe Massa fourth in the other Ferrari.
Robert Kubica claimed fifth place for BMW, with Toyota's Ralf Schumacher answering his critics with a season-best sixth.
Heikki Kovalainen was seventh for Renault, just pipping team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella.
Nick Heidfeld was ninth in the other BMW and Jarno Trulli rounded out the top 10 for Toyota.
David Coulthard failed to reach the top-10 and will start 12th, one place behind his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber.
Alex Wurz will start 13th for Williams, Rubens Barrichello 14th in his Honda, while the Toro Rosso pair of Scott Speed and Vitantonio Liuzzi are 15th and 16th, respectively.
Button will line up on the ninth row after a disastrous qualifying session.
'On my first run I got stuck in traffic behind one of the BMWs, and then in the second my car felt good,' said Button.
'But I had a shout from one of my engineers there was a yellow flag (for Anthony Davidson's spin). So it's not been my afternoon.'
Button will line-up just behind Williams' Nico Rosberg after his worst qualifying performance of the year, while Davidson slid out at Brooklands corner in his Super Aguri on his last run and lines up 19th.
Davidson's team-mate Takuma Sato spilts the Spykers of Christijan Albers and Adrian Sutil in 21st place.
But it was Hamilton's day, as he took the first pole position by a British driver at Silverstone since Damon Hill in his title-winning year of 1996.
And the championship leader paid tribute to the support he received from the packed grandstands around the circuit.
‘It was an extremely intensive qualifying he said.
‘Ferrari and Kimi were extremely quick and it all came down to that last lap and I had to pull it out.
‘I'm very excited about tomorrow now. I could see so many fans out there today. It's unreal.
‘I came across the line and I could hear the crowd, but I was screaming just as loud as them. I nearly lost my voice.
‘I like to make people happy. Driving around I do see the Hamilton flags and I get a big buzz and a lot of energy.’
Raikkonen was left a little flat after looking like going quickest until Hamilton pipped him at the death.
The Finn explained: ‘It was good, but I ran off circuit on the exit of last corner. But it's nothing we can change any more.
‘I'm disappointed, but hopefully I can make a good start and it's a long race.’
Alonso had set the quickest lap of the weekend in the second 15 minutes of qualifying, but the Spaniard could not replicate that in the shoot-out.
‘It was quite good, no big problems with the lap and I am quite happy with the car and how we performed,’ he said.
‘We wanted to be on pole, but this was the best we could do today. We've got a good set-up for the race so hopefully we can pass people in the race.’
