F1: Rosberg on Pole at Hockenheim as Bottas Impresses Once Again

As we predicted in our FP3 report, it was home boy Nico Rosberg took pole position for the German Grand Prix. If you're wondering what happened to Lewis Hamilton, well he managed to crash out of the first part of qualifying after suffering a front right brake failure.

Considering that the FP3 session and the qualification round use new brakes, the failure of the ones on Hamiltons car does come as a surprise. The brake failure ruled him out of the rest of the sessions which means that he will start 15th on the grid.

Rosberg always looked in the best of forms as he went on to post a time of 1:16.540 on his first run in Q3. This put him on provisional pole and the only car who looked to threaten that time was William's Valtteri Bottas. Bottas managed to improve on his final lap and was up on Rosberg through the first two sectors before finishing 0.219s shy of pole.

Team mate Massa starts third for Williams and after Austria, Mercedes is finally taking note of the pace both the Williams' cars have shown. Kevin Magnussen will start in fourth while Daniel Ricciardo managed to outqualify Sebastian Vettel yet again. Fernando Alonso will line-up seventh on the grid ahead of Daniil Kvyat and the Force India pair of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez.

World champions Jenson Button and Kimi Raikkonen failed to make the cut to Q3 and will start 11th and 12th respectively.

Rosberg has a huge advantage going into tomorrow's race but both the Williams drivers will be keen to finish on the podium. Hamilton will have to work his way up and his chances of getting past Rosberg look slim, however knowing him, he will fight it out.