Hamilton Pain; Raikkonen Gain

A high-speed accident after a wheel problem put paid to Lewis Hamilton in the final session, leaving Kimi Raikkonen to take pole. By MARK HUGHES

In a heartbeat it changed from a Lewis Hamilton challenge for pole to hoping he was okay after suffering a huge impact at a 160mph corner. He'd just set the fastest first sector time, fired up after having failed to find a way round a defensive Felipe Massa on the out-lap, trying to find space. Realising that wasn't going to happen, he'd then backed right off, dropped 10 seconds back from the Ferrari before beginning the lap, his first on new tyres in the final session.

The McLaren had felt pretty good thus far during the weekend, with a reasonable balance, though not quite as good as during the test at Spa the previous week where Hamilton described the car as "the best it's ever been". But it was still quick enough here to be nip and tuck with Ferrari, certainly much better than at Silverstone. It was all to play for.

The 'purple' first sector time shaded Massa's effort by a tenth - though Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen were still on their out-laps. But Lewis never completed sector two. Slow-motion replay out of the Dunlop hairpin appears to show the right-front wheel moving slightly on its axis.

But in the cockpit Lewis felt nothing, he was still intent on grabbing pole. The entry to the left-right flick of turn eight, the 'Schumacher S', is flat in top at around 160mph with no change in engine note. As Hamilton turned in, he seemed not to register immediately there was a problem, that this was more than a bit of understeer. But wisps of smoke were already trailing from the right front.

In fact the wheel had been incorrectly torqued due to a problem with the wheel gun. On the approach to the corner the wheel had shifted and at this point the tyre came into contact with some body part, probably brake ducts, which machined it like it was on a lathe. The carcass collapsed and the suspension appeared to then break.

Whatever the cause, the car was now flying over the kerb and barely touching the gravel trap before embedding itself heavily into the tyre barrier. Hamilton did not lose consciousness but was heavily winded and in considerable pain from his legs. Thankfully, he was essentially uninjured. The session was red flagged.

The same wheel gun had been used on Alonso's car and when Fernando returned to the pits, having not got to complete his out lap, his wheel nut was checked and found to be incorrectly torqued too.

The pitlane waited for 33 minutes as Hamilton was carefully removed and taken to the medical centre and the tyre barrier rebuilt. Tense moments - when the nine remaining drivers in the top-10 runoff just stared inwards and focused, fiddled, spoke the odd word to their race engineers over the radio.

Alonso's crew informed him of the nature of the problem and assured him it had been solved. Mark Webber was the only one who eventually got out of his car.

The way the timing had played out meant there was time for just one flying lap on new tyres for everyone, plus a sighting lap in order to get an extra lap's worth of fuel credit. For some, this was great news. Kimi Raikkonen was up for the challenge, very happy with the feel of the Ferrari on a race fuel load.

Being fuelled slightly lighter than Massa helped him be quicker through sector one, a hundredth faster even than Hamilton had been.

But Alonso was half a lap behind and flying. Aided by a slightly lighter fuel load he tripped the first sector timing beam a full two tenths faster even than Raikkonen, but was already in the middle of a wild oversteery moment that would ultimately deny him pole. But it was a fantastic piece of car control.

"I lost the rear a little bit in turn five and I lost control in the oversteer until turn six. For 50 or 60 meters the car was not in my control, so I was lucky enough to put the car back on the asphalt again because I think I nearly touched the grass. So from that moment, I thought for sure that pole position was not possible any more and I tried to do a good rest of the lap, tried to be fifth or sixth. At that moment I really thought that I had lost too much time and then when I realised that I was second I was pretty pleased because I had been lucky in that moment."

With Alonso thus compromised, Raikkonen duly went fastest in the second sector and equal fastest in the third to take his second pole of the year. Although the margin was 0.3sec, only that Alonso moment had decided whether Ferrari or McLaren was quicker here. Massa, on a slightly lighter fuel load, went third. "The interruption of the red flag lost me some of the feel I had," he reflected, "and I wasn't quite as good in the first and third sectors."

The BMWs were running significantly lighter than the Ferraris and McLarens and new father Nick Heidfeld used this to get extremely close to the times of Alonso and Massa. "I was satisfied with fourth until I saw that I missed the front row by only a tenth."

Robert Kubica was fuelled 8kg heavier in the sister car and lined up one place behind, 0.28sec slower. Everyone getting just one flying lap on new tyres played to Mark Webber's advantage, helping him put the Red Bull in an excellent sixth. He nailed a beautiful lap with an all-or-nothing approach. His Q2 lap had been almost as impressive.

Heikki Kovalainen, in the only Renault to make it to the run-off, was just 0.002sec slower and ruing not pushing just a little harder. He reported the R27 to be well balanced with its new front wing but still lacking in overall grip.

Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher lined up their Toyotas eighth and ninth, on near identical times. Jarno was back in his old chassis after a back-to-back on Friday proved beyond doubt that there was a problem with the new one that had proved so dire at Silverstone.

Hamilton's best fuel-burning lap left him starting 10th. Nico Rosberg and Alex Wurz were 11th and 12th for Williams. Nico reckoned traffic on the last corner of his Q2 lap was all that cost him a place in the runoff, having been seventh quickest in Q1. Giancarlo Fisichella didn't get on with the new Renault front wing as well as Kovalainen and languished in 13th ahead of Rubens Barrichello's Honda and the Super Aguris of Anthony Davidson and Takuma Sato.