Nurburgring qualifying: Eifel lottery

In the end, Vitantonio Liuzzi took the pole for Saturday's race, ahead of Robert Doornbos. With the session starting with a damp, drying track, but with more rain on the way, both waited slightly later into the window, and both got it exactly right. After that it heaved down - session effectively over.

Timo Glock was third, with Jeffrey van Hooydonk fourth. But the real story was about who wasn't at the sharp end of the grid: Frank Diefenbacher eighth, Paffett that gruesome 17th and Markus Winkelhock just one place further forward in 16th.

At least Winkelhock will start from pole in Sunday's second race, having stopped the clocks 0.013s ahead of van Hooydonk in Friday's dry timed session. It was the second pole for Mercedes' new F3 engine project. The first? Winkelhock at the Nurburgring in May, when snow stopped the race from taking place. What was that about fickle Eifel weather?

Paffett will line up fifth for Sunday's race, with Diefenbacher 11th.

Aussie Ryan Briscoe continues to find his feet after his recent switch to German F3. The Toyota Formula 1 team's Antipodean muse was downgraded from F3000 to get more experience and will start 13th on Saturday and 10th on Sunday.

Vinantonio Liuzzi (I) Dallara-Opel Spiess, 1m35.351s
Robert Doornbos (NL) Dallara-Mugen Honda, 1m35.401s
Timo Glock (D) Dallara-Opel Spiess, 1m35.745s
Jeffrey van Hooydonk (B) Dallara-Mugen Honda, 1m36.044s
Cesar Campanico (POR) Dallara-Opel Spiess, 1m36.072s
Norbert Siedler (AUT) Dallara-Opel Spiess, 1m36.144s

Marcus Winkelhock (D) Dallara-Mercedes, 1m23.407s
Jeffrey van Hooydonk (B) Dallara-Mugen Honda, 1m23.420s
Timo Glock (D) Dallara-Opel Spiess, 1m23.534s
Kousuke Matsuura (J) Dallara-Opel Spiess, 1m23.590s
Gary Paffett (GB) Dallara-Opel Spiess, 1m1m23.607s
Marcel Lasee (D) Dallara-Mercedes, 1m23.656s