Rosberg Takes Pole.

Nico Rosberg beat the Williams of Valterri Bottas and Felipe Massa to claim Pole Position at his home Grand Prix after Lewis Hamilton spun off into the barricade in Q1.

With the track temperature at just below 60 degrees, tyre degradation was a real concern for the teams, in contention with dealing with the decision by the FIA to ban the FRIC (Front and Rear Inter-Connected) System on the grounds of breaching technical regulations by positively influencing the aerodynamics of the car. Outlawing the system was thought to possibly damage Mercedes the most whose FRIC system was the most efficient on the grid, but there was no signs of this damaging the Mercedes performance in Hockenheim.

Q1 began with Marussia's Jules Bianchi taking to the 2.8 mile, 17 turn circuit as all 22 drivers looked to advance to the next session.
As the times kept falling, Kevin Magnussen, Lewis Hamilton and then Valterri Bottas, with a time of 1:18.213, all topped the timesheet. Then, with over 7 minutes remaining, the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton veered off the track, spinning through the gravel and into the wall which brought out the red flags to temporarily end proceedings.
From his team radio, Lewis was obviously shaken up by the impact, and was taken to the medical centre to check his knees. But the Brit was luckily uninjured.
The cause of the incident at the Sachs Curve was the right front brake disc failing which caused the front of the car to snap left and spin. Those brakes which failed were replaced that morning with ones from a different make- Brembo.

Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes after the impact at Sachs Curve

Once the action got back underway and the remaining time for Q1 end, it saw the cars of Adrian Sutil, Jules Bianchi, Pastor Maldonado, Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericsson who didn't set a time due to a hydralic leak from the throttle.

Hamilton would start in 16th place for the race as his time was enough to put him through to Q2 in the previous session. There was a dramatic end to the 15 minute session were Sergio Perez had just one lap to get his Force India into the final shootout and was able to knock Jenson Button down into 11th, knocking him outside of the top 10. Joining Jenson were Kimi Raikkonen who's still showing signs of finding the Ferrari's brakes difficult to master, as well as Jean-Eric Vergne, Esteban Gutierrez and Romain Grosjean.

The top 3 drivers for the German Grand Prix

 Going into Q3 and there were no scares for Nico Rosberg, not with team mate Lewis Hamilton unable to contend Pole Position. The Williams of Bottas and Massa were 0.2 and 0.5 of a second off of Rosberg's Pole time of 1:16.540.
Kevin Magnussen recaptured the form he showed at the start of the 2014 calendar with a solid 4th place in front of the Red Bull's of Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel. Red Bull were promised 3% more power from the Renault engine for this Grand Prix, but four-time World Champion Vettel admitted that wasn't the case and the RB10 is still suffering with a lack of speed.

Rosberg, with his first Pole Position at the German Grand Prix, gave himself the best possible opportunity to edge his lead out in the Driver's Championship even more to capitalise on Lewis' misfortunes.

Qualifying Results 

* Esteban Gutierrez will start in 17th due to a 3 place grid penalty occurred at the British Grand Prix
**Lewis Hamilton had to change the gear box so he drops 5 places to 20th
***Marcus Ericsson failed to set a time and therefore will start in the pitlane.