Vettel takes Nurburgring pole

On a strong showing by Carlin Motorsport, Vettel's teammate Mikhail Aleshin topped the slower B qualifying group and will start on the outside of the front row.

As the only man to break into the 1 minute 42 seconds, Vettel was surprised by his performance.

"I didn't expect to be setting those sorts of times," he said. "It was a little colder than practice yesterday and took two or three laps to really get the tyres working.

"At the moment I haven't made a plan for the race, a lot will depend on how the first corner goes as it's, how shall we say, 'tricky' with 30 cars slowing down to 60km/h."

Ben Hanley put in late effort to overhaul Alvaro Parente for second position in the A group, the Briton just a tenth shy of Vettel's time.

Both groups enjoyed clean sessions, bereft of incidents.

Milos Pavlovic was the first to the track in the B group, but it was Cram's Fairuz Fauzy who set the early running. Pavlovic and his Draco teammate, Seville's Alvaro Barba, held down second and third positions.

With six minutes of the session remaining Giedo van der Garde briefly went to the top, before there was a sudden flurry of activity. Davide Valsecchi moved into second place, only for the chasing Pavlovic to immediately displace him.

Moments later Aleshin set his fastest time of 1:43.511, which would prove unbeatable.

"I'm very happy, not just because I think we will have good speed for the race, but also in that I have only used one set of tyres," said Aleshin. The four points earned move Aleshin ahead of Alvaro Parente into a slender championship lead.

Barba, who had shone in the pre-season Nurburgring test, moved into second place in the group, after completing his lap seconds before the chequered flag.

On his final run, an opportunity to improve further was denied when compatriot Celso Miguez hit trouble out on track. Barba will start fourth.

In group A, Vettel was initially challenged by Alvaro Parente. The Portuguese had exchanged the second fastest time with Hanley before he usurped Vettel by just five hundredths of a second with six of the twenty minute session to go.

Parente's reign ended as Vettel and Hanley bumped the Tech 1 driver down to third in the dying stages.

"It was nip-and-tuck," said Ben. "Throughout the session we had been p2 and p3, but on my first lap I had a yellow flag and on the second I found some traffic.

"On that last lap I actually locked the wheel into the first corner which cost me a tiny bit of time, but I am really looking forward to the race."

Pos  Driver                Team                        Time
 1.  Sebastian Vettel      Carlin Motorsport           1:42.984
 2.  Michael Aleshin       Carlin Motorsport           1:43.511 + 0.527
 3.  Ben Hanley            Prema Powerteam             1:43.063 + 0.079
 4.  Alvaro Barba          International Draco Racing  1:43.547 + 0.563
 5.  Alvaro Parente        Tech 1 Racing               1:43.323 + 0.339
 6.  Clivio Piccione       RC Motorsport               1:43.852 + 0.868
 7.  Filipe Albuquerque    Epsilon Euskadi             1:43.685 + 0.701
 8.  Marco Bonanomi        RC Motorsport               1:43.999 + 1.015
 9.  Julien Jousse         Tech 1 Racing               1:44.094 + 1.110
10.  Davide Valsecchi      Epsilon Euskadi             1:44.081 + 1.097
11.  Guillaume Moreau      KTR                         1:44.178 + 1.194
12.  Fairuz Fauzy          Cram Competition            1:44.112 + 1.128
13.  Salvador Duran        Interwetten.com             1:44.230 + 1.246
14.  Giedo van der Garde   Victory Engineering         1:44.143 + 1.159
15.  Alejandro Nunez       Red Devil Team Comtec       1:44.267 + 1.283
16.  James Walker          Fortec Motorsport           1:44.172 + 1.188
17.  Charlie Kimball       Victory Engineering         1:44.511 + 1.527
18.  Milos Pavlovic        International Draco Racing  1:44.244 + 1.260
19.  Pasquale di Sabatino  GD Racing                   1:44.911 + 1.927
20.  Miguel Molina         Pons Racing                 1:44.386 + 1.402
21.  Michael Herck         Red Devil Team Comtec       1:45.207 + 2.223
22.  Yelmer Buurman        Fortec Motorsport           1:44.460 + 1.476
23.  Daniil Move           Interwetten.com             1:45.411 + 2.427
24.  Ricardo Risatti       GD Racing                   1:44.493 + 1.509
25.  Pippa Mann            Cram Competition            1:45.763 + 2.779
26.  Bertrand Baguette     KTR                         1:44.501 + 1.517
27.  Alessandro Ciompi     Eurointernational           1:45.959 + 2.975
28.  Carlos Iaconelli      Pons Racing                 1:44.524 + 1.540
29.  Xavier Maassen        Prema Powerteam             1:46.322 + 3.338
30.  Celso Miguez          Eurointernational           1:45.220 + 2.236