Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton snatches Nurburgring pole from Sebastien Vettel

Pole sitter Lewis Hamilton (C) of Great Britain and Mercedes GP celebrates in parc ferme with second placed Sebastian Vettel (L) of Germany and Infiniti Red Bull Racing and third placed Mark Webber (R) of Australia and Infiniti Red Bull Racing following qualifying for the German Grand Prix at the Nuerburgring on July 6, 2013 in Nuerburg, Germany.

Lewis Hamilton claimed pole position at the German Grand Prix as home favourite Sebastian Vettel was forced to settle for second in qualifying.

With Vettel having looked dominant in FP3 and set the provisional pole time, Hamilton responded with a lap of 1:29.398 to edge out the championship leader by just 0.1s. Vettel starts second ahead of team-mate Mark Webber, but it was a bittersweet session for Mercedes as Nico Rosberg failed to make it through in to Q3.

Kimi Raikkonen showed the improved Lotus pace with fourth, while Romain Grosjean starts just behind his team-mate in fifth place. It was another very impressive performance from Daniel Ricciardo as he took sixth ahead of the two Ferraris, although Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso both ran on the medium compound tyre in the final session.Jenson Button and Nico Hulkenberg start ninth and tenth having failed to set a time in the final part of qualifying.

It was a close session in Q2 as half a second covered the top 11 drivers, but Mercedes was caught out as it pit both its cars following their first runs and Rosberg was eventually pushed down to P11 with a final lap from Raikkonen. Good laps from Ricciardo, Hulkenberg and Button also hurt Rosberg, who will start on the sixth row alongside Paul di Resta.

The majority of teams opted to complete their Q1 laps on the soft tyres, with the mediums being saved for the race and only Red Bull and Mercedes bucking the trend. It was a poor session for Williams as the team marked 600 grands prix by seeing both of its drivers drop out in the first part of qualifying; Valtteri Bottas beating team-mate Pastor Maldonado and failing to make it through by 0.012s.

The back two rows are predictably occupied by Caterham and Marussia, with Charles Pic and Jules Bianchi shining relative to team-mates Giedo van der Garde and Max Chilton respectively.

German GP 2013 Qualifying Results:

Pos Driver                Team                 Time       Gap       
 1.  Lewis Hamilton       Mercedes             1m29.398s
 2.  Sebastian Vettel     Red Bull-Renault     1m29.501s  +0.103s
 3.  Mark Webber          Red Bull-Renault     1m29.608s  +0.210s
 4.  Kimi Raikkonen       Lotus-Renault        1m29.892s  +0.494s
 5.  Romain Grosjean      Lotus-Renault        1m29.959s  +0.561s
 6.  Daniel Ricciardo     Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m30.528s  +1.130s
 7.  Felipe Massa         Ferrari              1m31.126s  +1.728s
 8.  Fernando Alonso      Ferrari              1m31.209s  +1.811s
 9.  Jenson Button        McLaren-Mercedes     No time set
10.  Nico Hulkenberg      Sauber-Ferrari       No time set
Q2 cut-off time: 1m30.269s                             Gap ** 
11.  Nico Rosberg         Mercedes              1m30.326s  +0.501s
12.  Paul di Resta        Force India-Mercedes  1m30.697s  +0.872s
13.  Sergio Perez         McLaren-Mercedes      1m30.933s  +1.108s
14.  Esteban Gutierrez    Sauber-Ferrari        1m31.010s  +1.185s
15.  Adrian Sutil         Force India-Mercedes  1m31.010s  +1.185s
16.  Jean-Eric Vergne     Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m31.104s  +1.279s
Q1 cut-off time: 1m31.681s                              Gap * 
17.  Valtteri Bottas      Williams-Renault      1m31.693s  +1.146s
18.  Pastor Maldonado     Williams-Renault      1m31.707s  +1.160s
19.  Charles Pic          Caterham-Renault      1m32.937s  +2.390s
20.  Jules Bianchi        Marussia-Cosworth     1m33.063s  +2.516s
21.  Giedo van der Garde  Caterham-Renault      1m33.734s  +3.187s
22.  Max Chilton          Marussia-Cosworth     1m34.098s  +3.551s