Spaniard Alonso rules in German Qualifying

Spaniard Alonso rules the wet in Formula One German Grand Prix Qualifying

In the 2012 Formula One German Grand Prix qualifying at Hockenheim, Fernando Alonso scored the pole position beating the strong challenge of the German Sebastian Vettel who came second. Another German Michael Schumacher who is often known as the God of Formula One had set the fastest time before others set better times in a slightly drying track.

Mark Webber of Red Bull - an australian was the joker in the pack - and came in P3 ahead of Michael Schumacher. Nico Hulkenberg came in 5th and Pastor Maldonado scored the 6th place. Jenson Button of McLaren for a change outqualified his team mate Lewis Hamilton. They scored 7th and 8 th positions respectively. Paul di Resta of Force India came in 9th and Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus scored the P10 position.

Mark Webber has incurred a 5 place penalty for the race due to a gear box change. So Michael Schumacher will start at 3rd position and Mark Webber will start at 8th place on the grid. This results in three Germans Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher and Nico Hulkenberg starting at 2nd, 3rd and 4th positions in the German Grand Prix.

Michael Schumacher was on the verge of being knocked out in the first segment of the qualifying Q1. He however came 0.055 seconds faster than Jean-Eric Vergne. Michael Schumacher was timed at 1:16.686 to push Jean-Eric Vergne out who was timed at 1:16.741.

In the next segment of the qualifying ie. in Q2 Michael Schumacher's team mate Nico Rosberg came slowest among the 17 drivers. Nico Rosberg was also the only driver who could not break the 1 min 41 second barrier. He was timed at 1:41.551 seconds. It is to be noted that in the Q2 Michael Schumacher was P1 for sometime till Lewis Hamilton took the P1 position from him.

Another huge difference in performance between team mates was seen in Ferrari. While Alonso scored the pole position, his team mate Felipe Massa was 13 positions down at 14th place.

Nico Rosberg too will drop 5 places due to a gear box change and will start at 22nd position. India's Narain Karthikeyan will start at 24th position in his HRT car.  All the cars came within the 107% qualifying time and hence we will see a full grid of 24 cars tomorrow in the Formula One German Grand Prix 2012.

With the track expected to remain dry on sunday, it is going to be an absorbing battle in the Formula One German Grand Prix.


Qualifying position:

Position	Name	Team	Time
1	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:40.621
2	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	1:41.026
3	Mark Webber	Red Bull	1:41.496
4	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1:42.459
5	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:43.501
6	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	1:43.950
7	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:44.113
8	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	1:44.186
9	Paul di Resta	Force India	1:44.889
10	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus	1:45.811
Q2
11	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	1:39.789
12	Sergio Perez	Sauber	1:39.933
13	Kamui Kobayashi	sauber	1:39.985
14	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:40.212
15	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	1:40.574
16	Bruno Senna	Williams	1:40.752
17	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:41.551
Q1
18	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	1:16.741
19	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham	1:17.620
20	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham	1:18.531
21	Charles Pic	Marussia	1:19.220
22	Timo Glock	Marussia	1:19.291
23	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT	1:19.912
24	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT	1:20.230
	107% Time		1:20.991