Germany – Qualifications: Rosberg on the royal road after Hamilton’s crash

The crowd attended, but so did the heat, for this tenth qualifying session of the season at the Hockenheim circuit.

Q1: Start of the first part, with Jules Bianchi opening the session. Jenson Button is the first driver to set a time with 1:20.264, quickly beaten by Felipe Massa with 1:19.389 then Kevin Magnussen, 10 thousandths ahead of the Brazilian. Lewis Hamilton sets the standard, despite a small mistake in the stadium, with a time of 1:18.683 while his teammate, Nico Rosberg, makes an error and has to abort his attempt.

10 minutes before the end of Q1, Valtteri Bottas takes the lead, more than four-tenths ahead of Hamilton. The Lotus and Marussia teams are on super-soft tires. As for Rosberg, another mistake in the second corner aborts a new attempt. Moments later, Hamilton suffers a big off-track incident: he completely lost his Mercedes while braking at turn 9. The red flag is immediately displayed, with 7 minutes and 21 seconds remaining. On the radio, the Brit seems stunned. Replays appear to show a failure of the right front brake disc, which Mercedes confirms on Twitter. In any case, he is expected to start only in 16th position.

The session resumes and it is Rosberg, who still hasn’t set a decent time, who is the first to go out on tires.

Super-softs. He takes the lead with a time of 1:17.631, with less than six-tenths of a second ahead of Bottas, who was on soft tires. Behind him, the two Red Bulls are around four-tenths behind, with Ricciardo ahead of Vettel.

The battle for Q1 is raging at the back of the pack, with Romain Grosjean extracting his Lotus, at the expense of Adrian Sutil, whose engineer lets out a sigh of dismay when announcing the news to the driver. Bianchi can’t do better than the 18th time, five-tenths behind the Sauber. He is well ahead of Kobayashi and Chilton.

Eliminated in Q1: Sutil, Bianchi, Maldonado, Kobayashi, Chilton and Ericsson (withdrawn)

Q2: Nobody is in a hurry to go out on the track. Nico Hülkenberg finally breaks the silence after two and a half minutes. He sets the first reference time at 1:18.270, but Massa improves by nearly five tenths. The Brazilian’s advantage doesn’t last long: Rosberg takes the lead with 1:17.109, ahead of Bottas by over twenty-hundredths. Behind the two men, it’s Vettel, Magnussen, and Massa who make up the top 5 at the end of this first run. Button complains about being hindered by Grosjean, while the footage shows Kvyat having a scare at the entrance of turn 1, going wide afterward.

3 minutes before the end of Q2, apart from Hamilton, Sergio Perez is the only driver without a time. Some competitors are leaving the pits for a final attempt: Andrea Stella explains to Alonso that there is an improvement in the track that forces the Spaniard, provisionally sixth, to go out again to protect his position. His teammate cannot do better than twelfth and thus remains there for this qualification. Perez, on his only timed lap, knocks Button out of the top 10.

Eliminated in Q2: Button, Räikkönen, Vergne, Gutierrez, Grosjean and Hamilton (no time)

Q3: This time, Perez sets off immediately. He sets a slow time to start with 1:19.395, his teammate does better by just 6 thousandths. All the drivers are on the track. Rosberg takes the lead with a time of 1:16.540! Behind him, Bottas is half a second behind, Massa seven-tenths, Vettel and Magnussen a second… It seems that Mercedes hasn’t lost any of its verve despite the ban on FRIC!

Perez once again leads the pack in anticipation of the second batch of flying laps. Under the eyes of Frank Williams, Bottas and Massa secure 2nd and 3rd positions. The Finn falls two-tenths short of Rosberg’s fastest time. Magnussen secures fourth place, also ahead of Ricciardo and Vettel.

This is therefore the 9th pole position of Nico Rosberg’s career, the 5th this season. It’s the 26th pole position for Mercedes in F1, the 9th of the season.