Mark Webber took pole position for the Milton Keynes Red Bull team in tomorrow's Malaysian Grand Prix in a rain-affected qualifying session.

Webber finished well clear of Nico Rosberg in the Brackley-built Mercedes and his Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel.

Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton will have their work cut out to salvage something from the race after becoming victims of the weather in a qualifying session that was seriously affected by rain.

After a deluge had delayed the final phase of qualifying, Webber took a gamble to switch to intermediate tyres and it paid off as the Australian clocked a time of one minute 49.327 seconds.

Mercedes' Nico Rosberg starts on the front row after securing second place while Sebastian Vettel completed a pleasing day for Red Bull as he lines up third.

It will be even more pleasing for Red Bull that rivals McLaren and Ferrari start from towards the back of the grid after their drivers failed to progress from Q1.

Showers began to fall shortly before the session got under way and both teams decided to delay sending out their drivers in the hope the rain would subside.

It proved a costly error of judgement, however, as Button spun into the gravel to bring a premature end to his session and he lines up 17th on the grid tomorrow while Hamilton struggled to find the pace he needed and will start from 20th.

"We made the wrong call and we paid for it," said Button afterwards.

Adrian Sutil starts fourth in a Silverstone-built Force India, ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, who took a brilliant fifth on the grid for the Grove-based Williams team.

In sixth is Robert Kubica in an Enstone-built Renault, ahead of Rubens Barrichello in the second Williams.

In eighth place is Michael Schumacher's Mercedes, with Kamui Kobayashi ninth in a BMW Sauber-Ferrari.

In tenth is Vitantonio Liuzzi in the second Force India. Vitaly Petrov starts 11th in the second Renault.