FORMULA 1 Live

- German GP grid: 1-Mark Webber, 2-Rubens Barrichello, 3-Jenson Button, 4-Sebastian Vettel, 5-Lewis Hamilton, 6-Heikki Kovalainen, 7-Adrian Sutil, 8-Felipe Massa, 9-Kimi Raikkonen, 10-Nelson Piquet.

0' WEBBER!!! Fastest! Now Vettel... second! Button to second! And Barrichello to second! Mark Webber takes pole position!

1' HAMILTON QUICKEST!! 1:32.616! And Button goes second. Just seconds remaining...

2' Hamilton is ninth fastest out of the remaining 10 - he needs to act fast.

3' Button is back out, and weaving around to get some heat in his tyres.

4' Webber goes through in second, ahead of Massa. Now Vettel... second, pushing the other two down.

5' 1:32.797 for Rubens Barrichello, that's the time to beat.

6' Button pits! No timed lap - he will come in and out and have another crack...

7' Button is on his timed lap... only Brawn are on the track. Now Massa comes out. The remainder will only get one shot...

8' Jenson Button is the first man to come out - you can't really play much of a waiting game when you only have 10 minutes.

10' The final 10-minute session is under way, but there is no action in the pit lane - drivers waiting for the track to dry out. The rain has now stopped.

Q3 Nelson Piquet is through to Q3 and he has outqualified Alonso for the first time! What sort of havoc will the weather play with the final session?

- The eliminated drivers from Q2: 11-Nick Heidfeld, 12-Fernando Alonso, 13-Kazuki Nakajima, 14-Jarno Trulli, 15-Nico Rosberg.

0' Button safe! And Hamilton safe! They pull out last-gasp laps to put themselves into Q3! Well played...

0' Raikkonen takes to the gravel through a fast chicane!

1' Alonso spins! But he keeps his car out of the gravel and has one last chance...

1' Jenson Button is on a very slow lap and he is in real trouble - he has one last shot but the rain is getting harder!

2' Collision! Vettel and Nakajima have a coming-together in the pit lane - but is there damage to either car?

3' Barrichello clocks a 1:34.469! Everyone needs to get dry tyres on and record a lap, quickly.

5' The bottom five: Piquet, Rosberg, Button, Kovalainen Barrichello. But Barrichello on a quick lap.

6' Webber fastest by four seconds! 1:38.038! The racing line is starting to dry as the rain eases up.

6' Rubens Barrichello is taking a gamble on dry tyres - he has not set a hot lap yet.

7' Hamilton fastest with a 1:42.325... Webber and Barrichello in the bottom five.

8' Alonso 1:43.931, Heidfeld quicker... this is a real lottery.

9' Heikki Kovalainen brushes the wall and has he damaged the left rear of his car?

10' Fernando Alonso is going sideways around every corner - he will set the first hot lap time.

12' Kazuki Nakajima has also had a spin. Really treacherous conditions and will intermediates even be enough?

13' Everybody except Webber comes in to change from dry to intermediate tyres. Webber tries a hot lap but it is painfully slow and he now pits.

14' Massa runs wide!! He is off on the gravel - no damage to his car but he has to come painstakingly back around onto the track.

Q2 The rain is really falling and this could make for a spectacular Q2... which is now under way.

0' That's the end of the session! The bottom five drivers are: Robert Kubica, Sebastien Buemi, Giancarlo Fisichella, Timo Glock, Sebastien Bourdais. Mark Webber the fastest driver in Q1.

1' Rain is spitting down on the track, and it will take one hell of a lap for any of the bottom five to save their skins.

2' The top 10 are all in the pits, and confident there will be no late flurry of quick laps.

3' Three minutes to go - Bourdais, Glock, Fisichella, Buemi and Kubica are the bottom five as it stands.

5' There seems to be a bit of moisture on some sections of the track - is the rain starting to fall?

6' Glock slows and holds up Fernando Alonso around the final corner!! Alonso goes second, but he is furious and gesticulates wildly!

7' Mark Webber has been quiet so far and finds himself in mild peril in 13th place - BUT NOT FOR LONG! He clocks a 1:31.257 to go top of the pile!

9' Both Toyotas - Glock and Trulli - have slipped into the danger zone. It would be a heck of a surprise to see them knocked out in P1.

10' Presently in the bottom five: Kubica, Heidfeld, Buemi, Fisichella, Bourdais.

11' Sebastian Vettel nudges in front of Hamilton with a 1:31.430.

13' It's Hamilton again - 1:31.473 and he is four tenths quicker than anyone else on track.

14' Hamilton is on top with a best lap of 1:31.686, with Alonso, Massa and Barrichello in close attendance.

17' Lewis Hamilton has a new rear diffuser but his McLaren team-mate Heikki Kovalainen does not - and that helps to explain the massive disparity between their respective performances.

18' With rain a constant threat, all 20 drivers come out on track looking to record a good early lap.

20' Michael Schumacher wanders through into the Ferrari garage pursued by a posse of photographers - and qualifying is under way!

- How qualifying works: Qualifying is split into three. At the end of the first, 20-minute session, the bottom five drivers are eliminated and their respective times decide positions 16-20 on the grid. The times are then reset and after another 15-minute session another five drivers are eliminated. The times are then reset again and a final 10-minute session decides the top 10. Alles klar?

- It is a cool, cloudy day, and that could mean problems for Brawn. Team boss Ross Brawn has admitted it could be a difficult weekend for the championship pacesetters.

- Lewis Hamilton has had a great weekend so far, going fastest in two of the three free practice sessions so far. Hamilton paces FP3

- Welcome to LIVE coverage of qualifying for the German GP from the Nurburgring!