Hamilton and Massa traded fastest laps throughout this afternoon’s qualifying session but, with an absolute scorcher of a lap on his final attempt of the session Hamilton claimed pole position for the German Grand Prix in Hockenheim tomorrow.

Massa finished 0.2s off Hamilton’s time and will start tomorrow in second place. His team mate who is also on 48 points along with Lewis and Felipe at this point in the championship, did not manage well at all this afternoon. He struggled throughout the session with his F2008 and finished sixth on the grid.

Kovalainen seemed to be fighting with his own McLaren today but held it together enough to line up behind Massa’s Ferrari in third.

Trulli produced another of his trademark qualifying specials and he and his Toyota will complete the second row tomorrow.

Alonso was still complaining about his ragged Renault but he managed to pull a fantastic lap put out of the bag for his team. He will be hoping that his fifth position on the grd will result in a decent point scoring finish at the end of the race.

BMW could not manage to keep up with the big guns; McLaren and Ferrari, today. Kubica could only manage seventh on the grid which was the best the team could do. Heidfeld made the podium in Silverstone but was knocked out in Q2 this afternoon, after locking up under braking for the Spitzehre hairpin.

Red Bull Racing didn’t exactly set qualifying on fire today but two solid performances see Mark Webber and David Coulthard line up in eighth and tenth respectively tomorrow. They’ll be looking to go further than Trulli and Alonso in the first stint of the Grand Prix as they are probably fuelled heavier.

Vettel lines up in the middle of the two drivers of his future team. He’s the highest placed German on the grid, in ninth place for his home Grand Prix. 

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