Heikki Kovalainen produced one of the best qualifying performances in recent years to take pole position here today. His McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton could only manage fourth place after fluffing his first flying lap in Q3.
He ran onto the gravel, but rather than come in for clean tyres, he started a new lap, something that I believe cost him pole position.
In second place today was Red Bull's Mark Webber, who impressed yet again, and briefly held pole position. It is his equal personal best qualifying performance, and the first time Red Bull have been on the front row.
Kimi Raikkonen managed to get third place after the Ferrari team struggled to find the sweet spot in the set-up. Under the circumstances, a third place finish is very good indeed.
Nick Heidfeld put his qualifying gremlins behind him to grab fifth place. It marked the first time he has out-qualified his teammate Robert Kubica, who failed to set a time in Q3 after running off at Stowe.
Kubica will now start in tenth place after that mistake. This spells bad news for his chances of keeping up with the title race.
Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet qualified sixth and seventh respectively for Renault, with the young Brazilian continuing to show improved form after his poor start to the year.
Sebatien Vettel fulfilled the promise he had shown in the practice and qualifying session by securing eighth place - one place ahead of Ferrari's Felipe Massa!
The championship leader struggled for pace after his heavy shunt yesterday. His chances were further scuppered by a wheelnut problem in the pits that caused him to miss his final run, consigning him to ninth on the grid.
David Coulthard missed the cut for the top-10 shootout by the narrowest of margins and will start his final home grand prix from 11th place.
The Red Bull driver felt he might have done better had he not lost most of the final practice session on Saturday morning to a technical problem.
He will share the sixth row with Toyota’s Timo Glock, the man who collided with him at last week’s Silverstone test.
His teammate, Jarno Trulli, will start in 14th place behind the Toro Rosso of Sebatien Bourdais. Bourdais was largely expected to be in the final session with his teammate Vettel, but could not improve his time.
Honda endured another dismal qualifying showing, Jenson Button failing to advance to Q2 at his home GP for the third successive year and managing only 17th on the grid, one spot behind teammate Rubens Barrichello.
Nico Rosberg was a surprise casualty of the first knockout session and finds himself mired in 18th in the starting lineup.
The Williams driver was visibly struggling with his FW30 bouncing over the bumps and suspected a suspension problem might be the cause.
Ha-ha, I had predicted that Felipe Massa may win. Yeah, something tells me he may not after today.
Heikki to take victory tomorrow. Sorry for the bluntness of this article peeps, but I have to dash for an interview with some guy called Lewis Hamilton.
Bye.
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