Brawn pays tribute to Button

Button waited until the dying seconds of the top ten shoot-out to depose Kimi Raikkonen from pole to record his first in Monaco and his seventh in total.

"I think he is getting into the habit of saving the best until last," Brawn told the BBC. "He did it at the last race as well."

Button had not looked like a contender for pole through qualifying and was only eight fastest in the low fuel runs of Q2.

And despite watching Raikkonen set his best time on his third lap with the super-soft tyres, the Englishman stuck to his strategy of going for pole on his second flyer.

"He was not completely happy [with the car]," said Brawn, "but little adjustments here and there with the car setting and he knew that was the lap that he had to produce and he is just driving exceptionally well at the moment.

"We were going for the second lap and we saw that Kimi in particular got a very good lap on the third lap, and I think [Nico] Rosberg. But of course in the last session, when you put fuel in you put a little bit of extra load, and extra heat, into the tyres, so we stayed with our two lap approach."

Button's team-mate Rubens Barrichello will line-up third on the grid behind Raikkonen, who recorded his best qualifying performance of the year.