Having made headlines for all the wrong reasons for much of the week, Lewis Hamilton slipped quietly into the shadows.

He was again completely outshone by Jenson Button in qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix on Saturday.

While Button grabbed pole position for the second consecutive week for Brawn GP, Hamilton was left languishing outside the top 10 after failing to make it past the second segment of qualifying at Sepang.

Hamilton hardly looked like a reigning world champion as he struggled to match the pace in qualifying, recording only the 13th best time in Q2.

It was a low-key performance after a week in which the 24-year-old was stripped of his third-place finish at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix after admitting misleading stewards during an enquiry.

But having had to appear before the media yesterday to apologise for his part in the affair which he labelled as the worst experience of his life, the McLaren driver was perhaps pleased not to be the centre of attention once again.

"We qualified about where we expected to," said a downbeat Hamilton, who will be elevated to 12th on the grid due to a penalty handed to Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel.

"We don't yet have the pace to get into Q3 but the balance doesn't feel too bad - we're just unable to carry enough speed through the corners.

"We expect to see some improvements over the next two or three races. For tomorrow, I'm just going to race my heart out, do the best I can and try and score some points."

Hamilton's teammate Heikki Kovalainen will start one spot behind Vettel in 14th after a similarly disappointing day.

"We knew that getting into the top 10 would be tough, so my result was more or less what I expected," said the Finn.

"The gap to the cars in front is smaller than it was in Melbourne, so I'm confident that we're headed in the right direction, but we haven't yet found that extra bit of speed we need.

"The balance today wasn't completely to my liking, but I did my best and I'm looking forward to an enjoyable battle in the race tomorrow."