Mark Webber beat Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel to Korean Grand Prix pole position as the Australian’s last lap upstaged the hitherto dominant world champion.

Vettel had looked unstoppable until the final seconds of qualifying.

Fastest in Q1 and Q2, his first Q3 lap was three tenths of a second clear of the opposition.

But then Webber, who had been third in the provisional order, found a half-second improvement on his last pole attempt to set a 1m37.242s. The result was also the 200th Formula 1 pole for Red Bull’s engine supplier Renault.

Vettel’s response was simply not quick enough, with a poor first sector preventing him from improving on his earlier mark. That ensured pole for Webber by 0.074s, despite his potentially costly practice problems.

Fernando Alonso had held the outside front row grid spot after the first Q1 runs, but Webber’s leap and an improvement from Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren pushed the championship leader’s Ferrari back to fourth.

Lotus showed better form than of late as Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean took fifth and seventh in their upgraded cars, either side of Ferrari’s Felipe Massa.

Nico Hulkenberg took his Force India to eighth, beating the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher.

There could have been several surprises in the early part of qualifying, but in the end the only major upset was that Jenson Button did not make Q3.

The McLaren driver’s first Q2 lap was compromised by an error, and then he missed the cut by 0.005s when he had to back off on his second shot as yellows flew for Daniel Ricciardo’s Toro Rosso parking with a gearbox problem.

Had the end of Q1 worked out very slightly differently, neither McLaren would have reached the top 10. Hamilton was one of few drivers not to use super softs in Q1, and as others found big gains on the quicker rubber, his early time was shoved back to 17th place.

The McLaren was sat in the pits and could not respond, but escaped a shock elimination as Bruno Senna’s final lap was not good enough, leaving the Williams down with the Caterhams, Marussias and HRTs. Senna’s team-mate Pastor Maldonado fared only marginally better, qualifying 15th.

Alonso did use super softs and make two runs in Q1, yet that was only good enough for 16th. There were no such scares for either Hamilton or Alonso in Q2, though.

Sauber had to settle for 12th and 13th this week, while Paul di Resta blamed traffic as his Force India ended up only 14th.

At the very back, Narain Karthikeyan did not set a time due to brake problems with his HRT.

Pos Driver Team Time Gap 
 1.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m37.242s
 2.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m37.316s  + 0.074
 3.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m37.469s  + 0.227
 4.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m37.534s  + 0.292
 5.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault        1m37.625s  + 0.383
 6.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m37.884s  + 0.642
 7.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault        1m37.934s  + 0.692
 8.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes 1m38.266s  + 1.024
 9.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m38.361s  + 1.119
10.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m38.513s  + 1.271
 Q2 cut-off time: 1m38.436s Gap **
11.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m38.441s  + 0.674
12.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m38.460s  + 0.693
13.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m38.594s  + 0.827
14.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m38.643s  + 0.876
15.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault     1m38.725s  + 0.958
16.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m39.084s  + 1.317
17.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m39.340s  + 1.573
Q1 cut-off time: 1m39.180s Gap *
18.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault     1m39.443s  + 1.235
19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault     1m40.207s  + 1.999
20.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault     1m40.333s  + 2.125
21.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth    1m41.317s  + 3.109
22.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth    1m41.371s  + 3.163
23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth         1m42.881s  + 4.673
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         no time

107% time: 1m45.082s

* Gap to quickest in Q1

** Gap to quickest in Q2