» German GP: Webber beats Hamilton to Nurburgring pole

Mark Webber has claimed back-to-back pole positions after holding off a surprise challenge from Lewis Hamilton in a tight battle during qualifying for the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. Webber’s team-mate Sebastian Vettel recorded his worst qualifying result of the season to-date with third place, marking the first time all season that he’s failed to start from the front row of the grid.

Rain had been expected to rear its head during this afternoon’s qualifying session, but the clouds stayed away from the Eifel circuit and granted the 24 drivers sunny conditions under which to work. Conditions were perhaps not as cheery at Hispania Racing, with Vitantonio Liuzzi hit with a five-place grid penalty due to a gearbox change. The Italian qualified second-slowest overall, mere hundredths quicker than rookie team-mate Daniel Ricciardo.

At the front of the field, Webber looked simply unstoppable in the final phase of qualifying, producing a 1:30.251 on an opening run, before he improved further with a 1:30.079 to put pole position beyond doubt.

Well, at least it looked that way, until Hamilton produced an ultra-smooth time to leap into second place, just 0.055 seconds off Webber’s pole-clinching lap time.

Vettel opted for two hot laps to try and claim another pole, and despite holding the second-fastest slot, he was bumped onto the second row by Hamilton’s magnificent lap time. Four-tenths off pole position and roughly the same margin ahead of fifth-placed team-mate Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso took his Ferrari to fourth-fastest.

Both Mercedes drivers made it into the top-ten session, with Nico Rosberg opting for a single run to claim sixth place – one spot ahead of Jenson Button in the other McLaren – while team-mate Michael Schumacher couldn’t string a lap time good enough to get out of tenth place.

Adrian Sutil gave the home crowd more cheer by claiming the eighth-fastest time, while Vitaly Petrov took ninth in the Renault, outqualifying team-mate Nick Heidfeld by two places.

After his top-ten qualifying heroics a fortnight ago, Paul di Resta was unable to match his efforts on home soil in his Force India; he shares the sixth row with Heidfeld.

The seventh row of the grid is an all-Williams affair, with Pastor Maldonado once again outpacing Rubens Barrichello – the margin between the pair was four-tenths of a second.

Having both been surprise knockouts in Q1 at Silverstone just two weeks ago, both Toro Rossos made it into the second phase of qualifying – albeit not much further, with Sébastien Buemi pipping Jaime Alguersuari to 16th place.

Kamui Kobayashi was the unlucky driver to be eliminated in the first phase of qualifying, and he will start 18th, while Heikki Kovalainen continued his run as the fastest of the ‘second division’ team drivers, two spots ahead of stand-in team-mate Karun Chandhok, who will start from 21st place.

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2011 German Grand Prix – Qualifying Session Times:

	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1.	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing Renault	1:33.096	1:31.311	1:30.079
2.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren Mercedes	1:32.934	1:30.998	1:30.134
3.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing Renault	1:32.973	1:31.017	1:30.216
4.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:32.916	1:31.150	1:30.442
5.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:31.826	1:31.582	1:30.910
6.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes GP	1:32.785	1:31.343	1:31.263
7.	Jenson Button	McLaren Mercedes	1:33.224	1:31.532	1:31.288
8.	Adrian Sutil	Force India Mercedes	1:32.286	1:31.809	1:32.010
9.	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1:33.187	1:31.985	1:32.187
10.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes GP	1:32.603	1:32.180	1:32.482
11.	Nick Heidfeld	Renault	1:32.505	1:32.215
12.	Paul di Resta	Force India Mercedes	1:32.651	1:32.560
13.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams Cosworth	1:33.003	1:32.635
14.	Rubens Barrichello	Williams Cosworth	1:33.664	1:33.043
15.	Sergio Pérez	Sauber Ferrari	1:33.295	1:33.176
16.	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:33.635	1:33.546
17.	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso Ferrari	1:33.658	1:33.698
18.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber Ferrari	1:33.786
19.	Heikki Kovalainen	Team Lotus Renault	1:35.599
20.	Timo Glock	Virgin Racing Cosworth	1:36.400
21.	Karun Chandhok	Team Lotus Renault	1:36.422
22.	Jérôme d’Ambrosio	Virgin Racing Cosworth	1:36.641
23.	Vitantonio Liuzzi*	HRT F1 Cosworth	1:37.011
24.	Daniel Ricciardo	HRT F1 Cosworth	1:37.036
	107% CUT-OFF TIME		1:38.253