World championship leader Jenson Button of Brawn GP took a sensational pole for the Monaco Grand Prix, while Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari will start alongside him on the front row.

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• Qualifying times & commentary
• Video: Button reflects on pole
• Drivers: Hamilton sorry for 'mistake'
• Hamilton to start from last
• Drivers' standings

The British driver produced a characteristic final charge to snatch top spot with a time of one minute 14.902 seconds, which bettered Finn Raikkonen's mark by just two-hundredths of a second.

Rubens Barrichello in the sister Brawn came across the line a few moments later to take third while Red Bull star Sebastian Vettel followed with a time good enough for fourth.

Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton's session ended with a smash in Q1 after he clipped the barrier and he spun across the track, damaging his rear wing. He will start in last after a gear-box change incurred a five-place penalty.

Ferrari's Felipe Massa will begin on the third row alongside Nico Rosberg after taking fifth while behind them Heikki Kovalainen rescued McLaren's day with seventh ahead of Mark Webber in the other Red Bull RB5.

The other drivers to make it through to Q3 were Fernando Alonso of Renault and Kazuki Nakajima of Williams, who will start from ninth and 10th respectively.

Massa smashed the tip of his nosecone clean off at the entrance to Swimming Pool in the opening two minutes of Q1, causing brief yellow flags to be issued, while the red flags followed with eight minutes remaining when Hamilton lost control of the MP4-24.

After the crash Hamilton was unable to get his car back to the pits and was forced to exit the cockpit. With the clock stopped that left him seventh, knowing that the best he could hope for was 15th on the grid as his session was over.

There was worse to come, however, as Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi climbed out of the drop zone in the final moments of that segment to shunt Hamilton into 16th - and a gearbox issue then completed his misery.

There was disaster for BMW and Toyota as their entire line-up of drivers joined Hamilton in elimination: BMW pair Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica will start from 17th and 18th with Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock making up the back row.

Trulli complained later that Alonso had blocked him off on a hot lap which would have seen him reach the second portion of qualifying, and said the team were referring the incident to race stewards.

Renault's Nelson Piquet Jr - seeking a first progression to Q1 this season - spun out halfway through the middle portion to bring the yellow flags back out, but the car was not damaged and he continued on to secure 12th spot behind Buemi and ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella (Force India), Sebastien Bourdais (Toro Rosso) and Adrian Sutil (Force India).

There had been a hairy moment for Button in Q2 as he was placed precariously in 10th spot; even when he managed to improve to sixth, he was then overtaken in the timesheets by Massa and Vettel - meaning there was a possibility he would not make it through to Q3.

Yet he had done enough to make it through, and despite seeming to struggle in the opening few minutes of the top-10 shootout he pulled the vital lap out in the final dramatic moments of the qualifying session.