Webber beats Hamilton to pole position in the German Grand Prix

After McLaren's low-key practice form, the team had not been expecting to challenge for pole position, but Hamilton turned out to be the biggest threat to Webber and Red Bull.

World championship leader Sebastian Vettel will start only third for his home race - the first time all year he has been off the front row. Silverstone winner Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) had to settle for fourth this time.

Webber looked unbeatable throughout Q3, producing a 1m30.251s on his first run and then improving to 1m30.079s to put himself out of everyone's reach.

Hamilton was third after the first runs, was briefly pushed down to fourth by Alonso, but then blasted to second with a lap only 0.055 seconds down on Webber.

Vettel's second effort was not quick enough to reclaim the outside front row spot, while Alonso was 0.4s off the pole pace as he took fourth, half a second clear of his fifth-placed Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa.

Nico Rosberg only required on Q3 run to put his Mercedes in sixth, ahead of Jenson Button, who was a second away from McLaren team-mate Hamilton.

Adrian Sutil reached Q3 for his home race and gave Force India eighth place, ahead of Renault's Vitaly Petrov and national hero Michael Schumacher in the second Mercedes.

Nick Heidfeld and Paul di Resta could not match their Renault and Force India team-mates' progress into Q2 so will share row six, ahead of the Williams duo, with Pastor Maldonado outqualifying Rubens Barrichello by 0.4s.

After three start 18th places in qualifying, Jaime Alguersuari finally got beyond Q1 again - though he only made it as high as 17th, just behind Toro Rosso team-mate Sebastien Buemi. The pair were sandwiched by the Saubers, with Sergio Perez in 15th and Kamui Kobayashi the big gun eliminated in Q1.

Karun Chandhok got within 0.823s of Lotus team-mate Heikki Kovalainen, though the Indian could not prevent Virgin's Timo Glock sneaking between the Lotus duo.

Daniel Ricciardo showed highly encouraging pace in his second grand prix qualifying session as he was only 0.025s adrift of Hispania team-mate Tonio Liuzzi on the back row - and he will start ahead of the Italian in any case due to Liuzzi's gearbox change penalty.

Pos  Driver                Team                 Time            Gap   
 1.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1n30.079s
 2.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1n30.134s   + 0.055
 3.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1n30.216s   + 0.137
 4.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1n30.442s   + 0.363
 5.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1n30.910s   + 0.831
 6.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1n31.263s   + 1.184
 7.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1n31.288s   + 1.209
 8.  Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes 1n32.010s   + 1.931
 9.  Vitaly Petrov         Renault              1n32.187s   + 2.108
10.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1n32.482s   + 2.403
Q2 cut-off time: 1m32.180s                                   Gap **
11.  Nick Heidfeld         Renault              1m32.215s   + 1.217
12.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m32.560s   + 1.562
13.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Cosworth    1m32.635s   + 1.637
14.  Rubens Barrichello    Williams-Cosworth    1m33.043s   + 2.045
15.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m33.176s   + 2.178
16.  Sebastien Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m33.546s   + 2.548
17.  Jaime Alguersuari     Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m33.698s   + 2.700
Q1 cut-off time: 1m33.664s      	                      Gap *
18.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m33.786s   + 1.960
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Lotus-Renault        1m35.599s   + 3.773
20.  Timo Glock            Virgin-Cosworth      1m36.400s   + 4.574
21.  Karun Chandhok        Lotus-Renault        1m36.422s   + 4.596
22.  Jerome D'Ambrosio     Virgin-Cosworth      1m36.641s   + 4.815
23.  Tonio Liuzzi          HRT-Cosworth         1m37.011s   + 5.185
24.  Daniel Ricciardo      HRT-Cosworth         1m37.036s   + 5.210

107% time: 1m38.253s