Fernando Alonso grabs pole at wet Hockenheim ahead of German Grand Prix

The 10 drivers in the pole shoot-out were all delivering quicker and quicker times as they acclimatised to the circuit conditions in the final moments, and it was Alonso who handled it best, putting in a 1m40.621s to take pole for Ferrari.

World champion and local hero Sebastian Vettel was Alonso's nearest challenger, lapping 0.4 seconds slower than the current points leader as he took second ahead of his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber, who will drop five places due to a penalty for a gearbox change.

That will move Michael Schumacher into the top three on the grid on home ground. The German legend was on provisional pole for a while before ending up fourth quickest for Mercedes.

Three of the top four places on the grid will go to German drivers, as Force India's Nico Hulkenberg delivered a spectacular fifth-fastest time to give himself a season-best starting spot on row two. His team-mate Paul di Resta also reached Q3 and was ninth.

Pastor Maldonado completed the top six in his Williams, ahead of the two McLarens. Jenson Button was quicker than Lewis Hamilton, as the 2009 champion delivered his best qualifying performance since Bahrain in April.

Kimi Raikkonen was the final Q3 qualifier and rounds off the top 10 for Lotus.

The rain had arrived just before Q2 began, leading to a scramble to get a quick time in on the one or two laps that were always going to be the fastest of the segment. Among those who missed out were two of the men with five-place gearbox change penalties: Romain Grosjean (Lotus) and Nico Rosberg (Mercedes). They were 15th and 17th respectively.

Felipe Massa slithered off the road on his first Q2 lap and rejoined in Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso's path. Being blocked did not stop Alonso reaching Q3, but Massa's error consigned him to 14th.

Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo almost made it into the top 10 as the rain he wanted arrived, missing the Q3 cut by just 0.06s. Also out in the middle segment were the two Saubers and Bruno Senna's Williams.

Q1 was fully dry and relatively predictable, although Schumacher, Button and Webber all cut it a little fine in either timing or pace terms. In the event, the eliminated midfielder was Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne, for the sixth time in his nine grands prix.

Heikki Kovalainen was nearly a second quicker than Caterham team-mate Vitaly Petrov, while Timo Glock found himself outqualified on home ground by Marussia stablemate Charles Pic, despite the rookie's lack of practice mileage.

Pos  Driver                Team                 Time           Gap   
 1.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m40.621s
 2.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m41.026s  + 0.405
 3.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m41.496s  + 1.838
 4.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m42.459s  + 2.880
 5.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes 1m43.501s  + 3.329
 6.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault     1m43.950s  + 3.492
 7.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m44.113s  + 3.565
 8.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m44.186s  + 0.875
 9.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m44.889s  + 4.268
10.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault        1m45.811s  + 5.190
Q2 cut-off time: 1m39.729s                                   Gap **
11.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m39.789s  + 2.424
12.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m39.933s  + 2.568
13.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m39.985s  + 2.620
14.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m40.212s  + 2.847
15.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault        1m40.574s  + 3.209
16.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault     1m40.752s  + 3.387
17.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m41.551s  + 4.186
Q1 cut-off time: 1m16.686s                                    Gap *
18.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m16.741s  + 1.048
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault     1m17.620s  + 1.927
20.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault     1m18.531s  + 2.838
21.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth    1m19.220s  + 3.527
22.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth    1m19.291s  + 3.598
23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth         1m19.912s  + 4.219
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m20.230s  + 4.537

107% time: 1m20.991s