Newly-crowned World Superbike champion Alvaro Bautista clinched only the second pole positionhis title-winning season at Phillip Island on Saturday.
Having clinched the world title last time around in Indonesia, Ducati rider Bautista Bautista narrowly edged Kawasaki rival Jonathan Rea to the top spot in qualifying for this weekend's season finale in Australia.
Bautista was the only rider to break the 90-second barrier as he topped the timesheets with a 1m29.815s, two-tenths ahead of Rea in second.
While there was rain about earlier in the day, the track had dried by the time the Superpole session got under way.
Bautista set the initial pace with a 1m30.304s, closely followed by his nearest rival Rea, who briefly took the lead before Bautista bettered him again.
Alex Lowes secured third place just 0.027s shy of his teammate Rea.
Toprak Razgatlioglu had to settle for fourth nearly half a second behind the pacesetter, but ahead of teammate Andrea Locatelli and the satellite GRT bike of Garrett Gerloff.
Go Eleven Ducati man Philipp Oettl's shook off last week's concussion in Indonesia to set the seventh-fastest time, edging out the V4 R Panigale of Michael Ruben Rinaldi.
Honda pair Xavi Vierge and Tetsuta Nagashima completed the top 10.
TIMES1 Spain Alvaro Bautista Ducati 1'29.815
2 United Kingdom Jonathan Rea Kawasaki 1'30.026 0.211
3 United Kingdom Alex Lowes Kawasaki 1'30.053 0.238
4 Turkey Toprak Razgatlioglu Yamaha 1'30.243 0.428
5 Italy Andrea Locatelli Yamaha 1'30.580 0.765
6 United States Garrett Gerloff Yamaha 1'30.727 0.912
7 Germany Philipp Oettli Ducati 1'30.963 1.148
8 Italy Michael Ruben Rinaldi Ducati 1'31.106 1.291
9 Spain Xavi Vierge Honda 1'31.307 1.492
10 Japan Tetsuta Nagashima Honda 1'31.339 1.524
11 France Lucas Mahias Kawasaki 1'31.406 1.591
12 United Kingdom Scott Redding BMW 1'31.444 1.629
13 Ireland Eugene Laverty BMW 1'31.494 1.679
14 Italy Axel Bassani Ducati 1'31.613 1.798
15 Netherlands Michael van der Mark BMW 1'31.738 1.923
16 Spain Xavi Fores Ducati 1'31.767 1.952
17 Malaysia Hafizh Syahrin Honda 1'32.075 2.260
18 France Loris Baz BMW 1'32.122 2.307
19 Japan Kohta Nozane Yamaha 1'32.270 2.455
20 Czech Republic Oliver Konig Kawasaki 1'32.642 2.827
21 Argentina Leandro Mercado Honda 1'33.447 3.632
22 Kyle Smith Kawasaki 1'34.645 4.830