The championship leader routed the rest of the field with his initial 1m29.012s, which would have been good enough for pole on its own, but a second lap yielded further improvements and he found over a tenth to secure a 1m28.877s.
Verstappen's final lap was 0.581s clear of Piastri's opening effort, which the Australian could not improve on the second time around, but nonetheless was enough for him to secure a first front-row start having shaded team-mate Lando Norris by just 0.035s.
Norris could not improve on his second effort either and lost fragments of time compared to his younger team-mate in the second and third sectors to be beaten to the front row.
Charles Leclerc only did one lap in Q3, but rocketed up to fourth place as Ferrari appeared to lose pace compared to McLaren overnight having headed the British squad in Friday's sessions.
The two Ferraris were split by Sergio Perez, who was a whopping 0.773s in arrears to Verstappen, but the Mexican found enough to move ahead of Carlos Sainz by two tenths on his final run.
Lewis Hamilton was a second off the pace but beat Mercedes stablemate George Russell by 0.3s, responding to the younger Briton's improvement among the final runs to reclaim his place ahead.
Home hero Yuki Tsunoda made his way into Q3 and grabbed ninth, beating Fernando Alonso - who just scraped into Q3 to ensure his season-long streak of making the final qualifying session continued.
Source: Autosport