Kimi on pole as Hamilton crashes

F1 Grand Prix, GP Europe, Nürburgring

Kimi Raikkonen has put his Ferrari on pole in a qualiying session that was dominated by a crash of Lewis Hamilton. The young Briton suffered a tyre puncture in a fast left hand corner and violently hit the barriers. Lewis is not seriously hurt but taken away for a medical check. Alonso is second on tomorrow's grid after a mistake while Massa will start from the second row.

Just like the rest of the weekend, this session looks set to be cloudy and very windy but is expected to remain dry.

The first part proved to be once again an easy job for the McLaren and Ferrari drivers as they easily qualified ahead of everyone else. Both BMW Saubers are also easily through to Q2 but behind them a close fights takes place. Williams look also on form as both drivers are 7th and 8th in Q1. Less fortunate are Button, Speed, Liuzzi, Coulthard and both Spykers as their qualifying ends already after the first session.

The second session is the exact same story with now Massa being the fastest ahead of Alonso, Hamilton and Raikkonen. Together with both BMW drivers they are the only ones to not exit the pitlane for a second attempt.

From the men in danger, Webber did the best job in 7th place, followed by Kovalainen and both Toyota's despite Trulli missing the chicane and being unable to improve on his earlier time. Rosberg and Wurz are after all knocked out ahead of the final session. Fisichella also missed out on Q3 after several mistakes in his final attempt to make it through. The three are joined by Barrichello, Davidson and Sato.

At the start of Q3, Massa is ahead in the waiting line to start with some fuel burning. Lewis Hamilton is just behind and keeps attacking Massa until the first stops to start a flying lap. Alonso on the other hand is on different tactics as he only left the pitlane half a lap behind the others to have a clear view all around his qualiying laps.

As the first flying laps started, Hamilton appeared to be dominant as after the first sector he was already 3 tenths ahead of Massa. However, 3 corners later in the full throttle left-right hander, Lewis suffers a right front tyre puncture in the middle of the left hander part. The McLaren shoots straight off the track and violently hits the tyre wall.

The session is immediately halted in order to clear debris and aid Lewis away from the track. The hit may easily have been more than 200km/h. Although less heavy than Kubica's accident in Canada, medical support on track is required for the Briton for several minutes. After 6 minutes, Lewis is carried into the ambulance while putting his thumbs up. As is normal, a medical check will be performed in order to determine whether he is able to drive the race and on top of that make him recover from the shock he experienced.

The session is to be restarted at 15:27 after completing repairs to the tyre wall.

As the final 5 minutes and 13 seconds kick off, Heidfeld is the first of a string of cars who quickly want to complete another lap to reduce the amount of fuel in the car. After pitting, Trulli is the first to put in his one-shot lap. He will eventually end up in 8th place as all other drivers improved too.

In a short sequence of faster laps, Kimi comes out as the fastest man, just ahead of Fernando Alonso who misses the pole position due to an error in the second sector of his lap.