Kamui Kobayashi gave Toyota its fourth World Endurance Championship pole of the season at Shanghai International Circuit.
The Japanese driver set the fastest lap of the 20-minute, two driver qualifying session after team-mate Mike Conway recorded the third-best time during the opening set of runs.
Porsche held a provisional front-row lockout at the driver changes with Nick Tandy and Brendon Hartley leading the way, but later issues for both 919 Hybrids played into the hands of the TS050.
Tandy's team-mate Andre Lotterer had a lap deleted for exceeding track limits, while Earl Bamber spun the sister car at the esses.
That paved the way for Kobayashi to leap to the top of the order with a time of 1:42.526s, bringing the #7 Toyota's average down to 1:42.832s.
Kobayashi has been involved in all four of Toyota's poles this year in the car he shares with Conway and Jose Maria Lopez.
Lotterer, having been forced onto an extra lap following his misdemeanour, came through on a 1:43.579s which was slower than the efforts from both #7 drivers.
That put the second-placed Porsche four tenths of a second down on the pole-sitting Toyota at the end of the session.
Toyota's championship-chasing car qualified third ahead of the points-leading Porsche driven by Brendon Hartley, Timo Bernhard and Earl Bamber.
RESULT: 6 Hours of Shanghai qualifying
Vaillante Rebellion reduced the gap to Jackie Chan DC Racing in the LMP2 standings to nine points with pole for Julien Canal and Bruno Senna.
The #31 ORECA claimed an average time of 1:49.217s to pip the G-Drive Racing entry of Roman Rusinov and WEC debutant Leo Roussel by three tenths.
Jackie Chan DC's ORECA will start fourth after being qualified by Thomas Laurent and Oliver Jarvis, while the second Rebellion entry slotted into third.
In GTE-Pro, Aston Martin took pole for the second time in 2017 as Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen beat the Porsche of Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre.
Christensen's initial lap aboard the 911 RSR was the quickest of the opening drivers by three tenths, but Thiim's lap during the second set of runs was faster than Estre by over half a second.
That put the Aston up by two tenths on average, while the James Calado/Davide Rigon Ferrari finished fourth.
GTE-Am pole honours also went to the British marque, as Pedro Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana scooped their sixth pole in eight races.
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