The 2008 World champion, whose paternal grandparents hail from Grenada, was one of four drivers who opted to stay in the pits after rain started during the first qualifying session.
By the time he made it to the track, conditions had worsened and he spun to standstill, never making it to the second qualifying session.
It is the second race that Hamilton will start from down the grid after he failed to reach the third qualifying session in Melbourne last week.
“This was just one of those days. It had been a very good weekend for us up until qualifying started, and the simple fact is that we didn’t expect it to rain any more,” said the 25-year-old British driver.
“We went out at a similar time to the other top teams and as a result quite a lot of us were all out of luck. By the time I got out there, there were lots of yellow flags about, so you just couldn’t nail it – and then it started to rain more heavily.
“You couldn’t feel a thing, it was so, so slippery. It was easy to come off – I had a spin on my first lap, in fact – but I did the best job I could in the circumstances.”
Red Bull’s Mark Webber, who got out while the track was fairly dry, grabbed pole position with a time of one minute, 49.327 seconds while Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg was second in 1:50.673.
For Red Bull it was their third pole in as many events and it put them in a superb position to win at Sepang and claim their first Grand Prix of the fledgling season.
Webber’s partner Sebastian Vettel will start third on the grid after clocking 1:50.789 while Force India’s Adrian Sutil will start fourth.
