Mercedes' positive start to 2014 continued, with Lewis Hamilton taking pole position from 2013 World Drivers' Champion Sebastian Vettel by a measly 0.055 seconds.
Hamilton was top of the time charts for both Q2 and the Q3 shootout, after team-mate Nico Rosberg had gone fastest in the first session.
And the good news continued for the team - widely tipped as favourites for this season's Constructors' Championship - with Rosberg securing third on the grid in Malaysia, ahead of Ferrari pair Fernando Alonso (4) and Kimi Raikkonen (6), who were separated by Daniel Ricciardo, of Red Bull.
Nico Hulkenburg, Kevin Magnussen, Jean-Eric Vergne and Jenson Button rounded off the top ten.
Hamilton's pole was the 33rd of his career, equalling the great Jim Clark's record for a British driver, and he battled valiantly against tricky conditions to claim his historic pole.
Rosberg snuck into third on his last lap of Q3, overtaking Alonso, who had recovered from a clash with Daniil Kvyat which resulted in damage to the Spaniard's left track rod to go fourth.
Race stewards analysed the incident post-race, but decided to take no action against either man.
Button's tenth place was a disappointment, given McLaren's decision to send him out on intermediate tyres when every other driver in the final 10 had committed to wets. The former world champion said he had no regrets about his decision, given the best he could have hoped for would be to be two places further up the grid.
Further down the field, Marcus Ericsson's wet qualifying debut ended prematurely, when the Swedish rookie spun and crashed during a stop-start Q1, ending his hopes of progressing into Q2, and ensuring he finished bottom of the pack.