Sebastian Vettel grabbed pole for the Japanese Grand Prix with championship leader Jenson Button in seventh after a crash-strewn Suzuka qualifying session.
Toyota's Jarno Trulli will start next to Red Bull's Vettel with McLaren's Lewis Hamilton in third position.
Button's Brawn team-mate and main title rival Rubens Barrichello was fifth as drivers struggled after limited practice in Friday's rain-hit sessions.
Englishman Button now faces a fight to clinch the title in Sunday's race.
He needs to finish five points clear of Barrichello to claim the championship in Japan, with two more grands prix to come.
Vettel, third in the drivers' championship, is also mathematically in contention.
"It was a tough session for everyone, three red flags in qualifying is very unusual so I hope everyone's OK," said Button.
"I think we've got a reasonable amount of fuel on board, so yeah, it's good. I'm not looking at Sebastian really."
Vettel, who sits 10 points behind Barrichello, said: "Three races to go, it's quite a big gap, but every race has to be a chance."
Four crashes heavily interrupted a dramatic qualifying session with two of them heavy-impact accidents at high speed on a circuit where drivers had experienced little dry running after Friday's washout.
Toyota's Timo Glock was airlifted to hospital with what has been diagnosed as an "abrasion to the left upper leg", while Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari was given the all-clear after a medical check-up.
Alguersuari's team-mate Sebastien Buemi and McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen were also involved in off-track incidents as they lost control over the fast, technically-challenging figure-of-eight track.
Though Glock, who qualified 14th, could be fit to race on Sunday Barrichello immediately called for Suzuka to increase the size of its run-off areas, describing their present state as "very dangerous".
Of his performance on a circuit which has not been used for a Formula 1 race since 2006, the Brazilian added: "To beat JB [Button] on the same fuel level is an aim I have reached.
"When you don't have the car to win, that's what you have to aim for. We didn't have a very competitive session."
Brawn had made a last-gasp change to the suspension on Button's car just before qualifying, but the events which followed overshadowed any technical detail.
For the first time in his nine-year career, Mark Webber sat out in qualifying after crashing at the troublesome Degner Two [Turn Nine] during the final practice session on Saturday morning, which left Red Bull unable to repair his car in time.
Webber will begin Sunday's 53-lap race from the pit lane, and the incident represents a serious blow to Red Bull's hopes of keeping the constructors' title alive as they trail Brawn by 42.5 points.
"The hill was steep and it's just become a mountain," team boss Christian Horner told BBC Sport. "It's not great in that respect."
Alguersuari, who will start in 15th, crashed at the same point where Webber lost control - the gravel trap again not doing its job fully - to trigger a red flag with 11 minutes remaining of qualifying session two.
Three minutes after it resumed it was again halted after Glock, who missed Friday practice through illness, ran wide at the final turn before careering head on into a tyre wall.
That left the remaining drivers under pressure to clock timed laps with just six minutes remaining.
And the situation intensified further when Buemi scraped along the barriers at the exit of Spoon before continuing his lap in a damaged car, rather than parking up, to spark a yellow flag for the final few seconds.
Renault's Fernando Alonso, set to start in 12th, was the most high profile victim - but he claimed some times were set when yellow caution flags were being waved, meaning drivers should slow down.
"Everybody was improving their times," he said. "I backed off. Other people didn't. We'll see what happens this afternoon."
Buemi qualified 10th, just behind Heikki Kovalainen.
McLaren's Finnish driver caused the final top-10 qualifying session to be briefly red-flagged after sliding off at Degner One.
Giancarlo Fisichella will start 16th on the grid as he continues to grapple with his relatively new drive, the Italian again failing to make it through the first qualifying session for Ferrari after three attempts.
"I was not too bad in the first and last sector, but there was three tenths missing in middle sector," he said. "It's tough but I'm [still] looking forward."
