Nelson Piquet Jr was only a couple of tenths slower than Renault team-mate Fernando Alonso in first qualifying for the German GP, but missed the cut.

Nelson Piquet Jr was the biggest victim of revolving door at the bottom of the timesheets in first qualifying at Hockenheim, the Brazilian looking set to start the German Grand Prix from a disappointing 17th on the grid.

A poor first run, in which he ran extremely wide at the hairpin on his flying lap, had confined the Renault driver to 20th and last as the session moved into its final minutes but, even though he improved to eleventh on his second run, it was not enough to prevent the rookie from slipping inexorably back towards the drop zone as others improved even closer to the chequered flag. A last-ditch run failed to provide any improvement in position for Piquet, although the Brazilian appeared to claim that Sebastian Vettel had impeded his run.

Piquet was joined in the bottom five by Kazuki Nakajima, who also yo-yo'd in and out of the drop zone in the closing moments, Silverstone podium visitor Rubens Barrichello and the two Force Indias.

With six minutes remaining, Jarno Trulli, David Coulthard, Jenson Button, Giancarlo Fisichella and Piquet filled the bottom five positions, and those who eventually escaped would all come close to returning. Trulli, in particular, left it to final minute to ensure that he was safe, while Button escaped only to slide back to 15th at the chequer.

Felipe Massa ventured out at the end of the session to boost Ferrari morale with a 1min 14.921secs fastest effort, while Kimi Raikkonen made it a Scuderia 1-2 equally late in the session as he continued to try and sort the handling of his F2008. Free practice pacesetters Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen were next up, having opted to sit out the end of the session. Hamilton had earlier headed the timesheets with the 1min 15.218secs effort he ended up with, but the lap was notable for having seen the Mclaren miss the apex of the hairpin by some margin.

Vettel rounded out the top five.