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Enthusiast Groups => Motorsports => Formula One => Topic started by: fasteddy on July 19, 2008, 09:18:56 AM
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By Matt Beer Saturday, July 19th 2008, 13:06 GMT
Lewis Hamilton beat Felipe Massa to pole position for the German Grand Prix after a thrilling battle between the pair throughout qualifying.
The duo had topped a segment apiece in Q1 and Q2, before Massa put his Ferrari on provisional pole with his first flying lap of Q3, beating Hamilton by 0.4 seconds at that stage.
Massa then dug deeper and improved to 1:15.859 with his second lap, putting himself half a second clear of the field and looking assured of pole.
But Hamilton made an even greater gain, going over one second quicker than his previous run to beat Massa by nearly 0.2 seconds.
Heikki Kovalainen went off in the stadium section on his first run, then recovered to take third at the end of the session, alongside another remarkable qualifying effort by Toyota's Jarno Trulli, who took fourth.
Fernando Alonso (Renault) nearly found himself eliminated in Q1, having fallen right down to 17th before leaping back up the order with his last lap.
He then comfortably made it through to the top ten, and put himself in a provisional second place after his first lap before ending up fifth ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, who had an extremely muted session and only managed sixth.
Robert Kubica (BMW) got his weekend back on track following yesterday's crash and this morning's driveshaft failure by taking seventh place, despite a slight scare in Q1 when he only scraped through by 0.018 seconds having lost time behind Giancarlo Fisichella's Force India (which was also on a flying lap).
Present and future Red Bull trio Mark Webber, Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso) and David Coulthard completed the top ten, ahead of Timo Glock in the second Toyota
While Kubica overcame his earlier dramas to maintain his long streak of Q3 appearances, his BMW teammate Nick Heidfeld missed the top ten cut again after running slightly wide at the Spitzkehre on his last run, leaving him 12th.
Sebastien Bourdais was also left ruing an error at the same place, ending up 15th on the grid having locked up and slid down the hairpin escape road.
With the Toro Rossos in more competitive shape, Bourdais' error notwithstanding, it was almost inevitable that some of the bigger names would be eliminated in Q1 - especially as a scant 0.22 seconds covered ninth to 16th places in the session.
Williams and Honda both got one driver into Q2 - with Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button sharing row seven - but saw their other car eliminated at the first hurdle as Williams' Kazuki Nakajima and Honda's Rubens Barrichello found themselves 16th and 18th despite only being 0.2 seconds slower than their respective teammates.
Nelson Piquet (Renault) was the other big name Q1 casualty, missing the first cut for the fifth time in his ten Formula One races, and accused Vettel of blocking his fastest lap.
The Force Indias brought up the rear, with Adrian Sutil out-qualifying Fisichella, although even they were just 1.7 seconds off the pace.
Pos Driver Team Q1 Q2 Q3 Laps
1. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:15.218 1:14.603 1:15.666 13
2. Massa Ferrari 1:14.921 1:14.747 1:15.859 16
3. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 1:15.476 1:14.855 1:16.143 17
4. Trulli Toyota 1:15.560 1:15.122 1:16.191 21
5. Alonso Renault 1:15.917 1:14.943 1:16.385 19
6. Raikkonen Ferrari 1:15.201 1:14.949 1:16.389 19
7. Kubica BMW Sauber 1:15.985 1:15.109 1:16.521 20
8. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:15.900 1:15.481 1:17.014 20
9. Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:15.532 1:15.420 1:17.244 22
10. Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 1:15.975 1:15.338 1:17.503 20
11. Glock Toyota 1:15.560 1:15.508 17
12. Heidfeld BMW Sauber 1:15.596 1:15.581 14
13. Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1:15.863 1:15.633 16
14. Button Honda 1:15.993 1:15.701 15
15. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:15.927 1:15.858 15
16. Nakajima Williams-Toyota 1:16.083 10
17. Piquet Renault 1:16.189 7
18. Barrichello Honda 1:16.246 10
19. Sutil Force India-Ferrari 1:16.657 10
20. Fisichella Force India-Ferrari 1:16.963 10
All timing unofficial