German GP preview and quali review

Justin: That's twice in a row now that Mark Webber has grabbed pole. One hopes he doesn't let the advantage slip as he did at the start of the British GP.

This race today could be a hell of a battle, with Mark lining up just ahead of Lewis, Seb and Fernando. As usual, it's pretty much the championship players from last year.

Quali was an interesting affair, with q3 starting off with Fernando and Lewis doing pretty similar times, with Lewis just edging ahead. Then Webber stonked in with a lap almost half a second up on that pair. Amazing. Their second runs saw Lewis do a lap just 0.05 seconds slower than webber, with Vettel popping into 3rd ahead of Alonso. Alonso was three tenths down on the pole time, so will have to show the usual better race pace to have any hope of catching those ahead.

Martin Brundle remarked during quali that Vettel was walking around with a "cloudy face" this weekend. For the first time this year, it's not all going his way and he doesnt like it. He knows Webber is much more of a very real threat now as he has gotten to grips (pardon the pun) with the new tyres. Vettel also knows that Alonso has become more of a threat. It's not panic stations at all for Vettel, as lets be clear, all he has to do for the second half of the season is turn up and collect solid points really. But, it's the first time this year he has qualified outside the front row...if we're judging him by his standards alone, that will annoy him surely.

It should be very interesting watching Vettel at the start and throughout the race, given he probably won't be leading from start to finish as usual.

My co-blogger compared Vettel to old Schumi in terms of becoming the guy in a class of his own....well, schumi led a lot from the front too...difference is even I admit Schumi had some beautiful drives through fields of cars to score wins and points finishes. Belgium 95 anyone?? Vettel has never done anything like this, so for me, he isn't the class of the field just yet.

Go Webber....Go Alonso later today.....Hamilton and Vettel to crash into each other at the first corner...woohoo! :-)

Latest from the bbc website from Germany is that its wet, windy and utterly miserable weather....an open race then! (Ferrari struggled big time though in the wet at silverstone).