Formula One championship leader Nico Rosberg made the right call to take pole position while Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton got it all wrong at the British Grand Prix yesterday.

As Hamilton aborted his last lap, assuming he could not improve on a time that looked good for pole in wet conditions, Rosberg kept on pushing and found the final sector of the circuit had dried enough to go faster.

“It was Lewis’s decision because he thought he cannot go quicker but Nico proved you can go quicker and he was proved right,” said Mercedes’s non-executive chairman Niki Lauda.

Hamilton, who needs to win his home race this afternoon to reduce the 29-point gap between the two title rivals with 11 races remaining, found himself suddenly down in sixth place on the starting grid.

Hamilton was not the only one to make a major error of judgement on a changeable day at Silverstone that caught out some of the biggest names in the sport and rewarded some of those more used to lining up at the back.

Ferrari and Williams completely misjudged the weather and failed to get any of their drivers through the first phase when rain started to fall before they had set quick enough times.

Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen qualified 19th and 20th respectively for Ferrari.

Brazilian Felipe Massa, who took pole at the previous race in Austria, was 18th with Williams team-mate Valtteri Bottas 17th.

Rosberg, as so often this season, got it right when it mattered – even if he was almost denied his chance by Hamilton going slow in front of him.

“It was a crazy qualifying,” the German told reporters.

“It was quite wet... I told the guys ‘that’s it’. And then we were sitting in the box (garage) and we just came to a general conclusion that we might as well go out and have a look at the track.

“Then it seemed like we should give it a go, but even then I still didn’t really believe that the track would be better.

“But what made it was the last sector... it was a lot drier.”

Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel qualified alongside Rosberg on an all-German front row with McLaren’s Jenson Button – who has never appeared on the podium at his home race – in third.

While the heavyweights stumbled, tiny Marussia took advantage yesterday with Frenchman Jules Bianchi qualifying 12th for today’s race and British team-mate Max Chilton 13th.

Chilton, however, has a five-place gearbox penalty.

Today’s grid at Silverstone

Note: Chilton loses five places due to gearbox change.

Gutierrez drops ten places for unsafe release at previous round.