Norris and Verstappen were locked in a tight duel for top spot after the first runs of the pole shootout, with just 0.119 seconds separating the pair halfway through Q3.
Verstappen was first on track for the second runs and found enough time to move ahead of Norris by just 0.045s, but the Briton was cooking up a reply that would blow that time out of the water.
Fastest of anyone in the first and third sectors, Norris lowered the bar to 1 minute 9.673s, obliterating Verstappen by a mammoth 0.356s for his third pole of the season.
“An amazing day,” he said. “It was a nice lap. Qualifying was pretty smooth.
“Great job by the team. Happy with today.
“I’m excited for tomorrow. I’m sure it’s going to be tough. Max has been quick all weekend. I know we got him today, but he’s still second. He’s going to be putting up a good fight, especially at his home race, so I’m looking forward to it.”
Verstappen was satisfied to accept a front-row start, though he was pessimistic about his odds of challenging for victory today.
“I think the whole qualifying we just lacked a bit of pace,” he said. “I tried the best I could. I’m still very happy of course to be on the front row.
“We’ll give it a good go, but of course when you’re more than 0.3 seconds behind in qualifying, you have to be realistic. I’ll just try to have a good race tomorrow.”
Oscar Piastri put the sister McLaren car third on the grid after a scruffy final lap cruelled his pole chances.
“I just didn’t do a good enough job,” he said. “I think the first half of the lap was pretty solid and then the second half wasn’t quite what I needed.
“A little bit disappointing not to be a bit higher up, but we’ve still got a good race car underneath us, and we can get some really good points and hopefully a trophy tomorrow.”
George Russell was the quickest Mercedes driver in fourth, beating Sergio Pérez in the second Red Bull Racing car.
Charles Leclerc led the way for Ferrari in sixth ahead of Alex Albon, the Thai driver putting in an excellent performance for Williams to claim his fourth top-10 qualification of the season, with Lance Stroll and Pierre Gasly in ninth and 10th.
Carlos Sainz was a shock Q2 elimination, the Ferrari driver qualifying just 11th on a difficult weekend for Ferrari and after a tough build-up to the weekend for himself, having lost almost all his dry practice time to a gearbox problem on Friday afternoon.
Of limits consolation to the Spaniard is that he’ll start ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who was an underwhelming 12th after a scrappy final lap on which he failed to set personal best times in two of the three sectors.
He will also face a stewards investigation after qualifying for impeding Pérez at the beginning of qualifying, forcing the Mexican to abandon a flying lap and leaving him down a set of soft tyres for having to set a second lap.
Yuki Tsunoda will start 13th for RB ahead of Haas teammates Nico Hülkenberg and Kevin Magnussen.
Daniel Ricciardo qualified 16th - it’s the first time since May he was knocked out in Q1 - with an almost 0.4-second deficit to Q2-bound teammate Yuki Tsunoda.
Esteban Ocon was furious with the set-up of his car, which he described as “a disaster since the beginning of the weekend” on his way to 17th on the grid ahead of Sauber teammates Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu.
Logan Sargeant failed to set a time after his Williams team ran out of time to repair the massive damage done to his car in a big FP3 crash earlier yesterday.