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Briton Lewis Hamilton of McLaren led the way in Friday afternoon testing for the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring.

Reigning champion Hamilton clocked one minute, 32.149 seconds with only seven minutes left in the session to take over from home favourite Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull.

McLaren spent a good deal of the morning session - topped by Mark Webber of Red Bull - and some of the afternoon upgrading their bodywork, while the world champion also sported a new double diffuser.

It paid off for Hamilton, as team-mate Heikki Kovalainen's MP4-24 did not feature the upgrades and he finished 17th.

Again the session was interrupted early by rain, but once the track dried a flurry of quick laps were set on super-soft tyres.

Finn Kovalainen started it off with an hour remaining, before first Australian Webber then Briton Jenson took P1.

Vettel delighted fans braving the chilly weather by going top with 25 minutes to go, and with rain again threatening to fall, it looked as though the headlines would belong to Red Bull once again.

However, Vettel had to be content with second after Hamilton's quick run, which came a lap after a long trip to the run-off area at Mercedes Arena.

Button was third ahead of Webber, followed by Toyota's Jarno Trulli and Force India's Adrian Sutil, who had retired in the morning with a mechanical problem.

Rubens Barrichello enjoyed a better session in seventh, with Kazuki Nakajima of Williams sandwiched between Renault duo Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet Jr behind the Brawn GP driver.

Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen were 12th and 16th for Ferrari, while bottom was Giancarlo Fisichella, who spun his Force India into the barriers after only three timed laps as the track became wet.

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Jonathan Symcox / Eurosport