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Mark Webber has score his first pole position in qualifying for Sunday’s German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring.

Webber had looked strong in the free practice sessions and in an exciting qualifying session affected by intermittent rain he set a time of 1:32.230, beating Rubens Barrichello to the front of the grid by a bit over a tenth of a second.

Jenson Button will start third alongside local boy Sebastian Vettel on the second row.

After 132 Grands Prix this will be Mark Webber’s first time starting from the front of the grid and he  is clearly fired up to continue the charge and win his first race:

This is a very special day for me. I’ve been close to getting pole a few times in the past, and now we’re here.  The team has done a very good job; I’ve been quick all weekend, but we got really tested today. All the teams and drivers did in that second session – it was very chaotic.

But I’m now in a fantastic position to get my first win. Obviously the Brawns have had a strong season and will push us but we’re up for the fight – I certainly am – and I’m up for trying to win my first race.

McLaren didn’t quite produce the top three finish predicted by Eddie Jordan but a strong fifth and sixth place is a good result for the Woking based team.  The German Grand Prix will be the last big push at developing the MP4-24 with the factory concentrating on next year’s car for the rest of the season.

While his team mate Heikki Kovalainen only had a new front wing, Lewis’s car also had a new diffuser which helped him to the top of the timesheets in free practice.  From fifth on the grid Hamilton is eying a podium:

If it stays dry tomorrow then we’ll definitely be in a good position and we can shoot for the podium for sure.  We could fight the Red Bulls even. I think it will probably be wet though.

Adrian Sutil will be one to watch if it rains.  He produced Force India’s best ever qualifying result of seventh.

2009 Formula One German Grand Prix Qualifying Results

Update: Timo Glock drops to 20th after a 3 place penalty for blocking Alonso.

Image: Red Bull/Getty

As we posted last week, Nick Heidfeld is wearing a special helmet design for his home Grand Prix this weekend but he is not the only German on the grid and he is not the only one who brought a new helmet to the Nürburgring.

There are five German drivers and three of them will be wearing new lids.

Sebastian Vettel, who seems to like changing his helmet design, is wearing a new silver version while Heidfeld’s helmet was designed by a fan who won a competition on his website.

Timo Glock’s design came from a rather younger fan, though.  Panasonic ran a ‘Kids School’ competition to design a helmet for Timo to wear at the German Grand Prix and at the British Grand Prix, Glock studied the entries and selected a winner; six-year-old Tom Luca Hoffmann from Bad Lippspringe, around 400km north east of the Nürburgring.

Tom’s design features Glock driving his Toyota past cheering fans.  Glock said:

I was very impressed with Tom’s drawing because it is quite detailed even though he is only a young kid; that’s why I chose it. I’m looking forward to racing with it in front of my home fans and hopefully it will be a lucky charm!

Both Heidfeld and Glock will be auctioning their helmets for charity after the race.

Codemasters will be releasing their new Formula One video game for Wii and PSP later this year, followed by versions for PS3, XBox 360 and PC in 2010, but if you just can’t wait that long Brawn GP have released their own racing game for iPhone and iPod Touch.

Imaginatively called Brawn GP Racing, it is the first Formula One game for the iPhone and iPod Touch and is available from the iTunes App Store.

The game also ties in with a competition where you can win a Mercedes SL, the idea being that the faster your lap time the more competition entries you get.

The game only features one track at the moment; a strange circuit somewhere in central London featuring every famous London landmark the developers could pack in.  As you scream around what might be Hyde Park, everything from Tower Bridge and the London Eye to Big Ben and Buckingham Palace slides past.

More tracks will be added throughout 2009 supposedly inspired by real circuits like Silverstone, Monza and Monaco.  There is also a news section and a gallery where you can save pictures to use as wallpaper.

The game itself is mildly amusing.  The graphics are quite nice and the car sounds good but the handling is tricky.  It seems to drive more like a BMW than a Brawn.  I found the car either understeering off one side of the track or oversteering off the other.  There is an auto-acceleration mode but strangely it doesn’t also auto-brake so it is of dubious help.

With only one track at the moment, £2.39 seems a bit steep but I guess if you win a Mercedes SL the game will have paid for itself…

F1 Buzz rating:

I couldn’t agree more with Mr Saward. In a great post on his blog (with an awesome URL, check it out), Joe Saward sums up the thoughts of Formula One fans everywhere.

This comes after the news that the rotting zombie corpse that is the FIA/FOTA war has broken through the coffin of the WMSC agreement of last month, clawed its way up through the earth and is now stumbling lopsided down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, hungry for brains.

Today the FIA issued a press release after the teams met at the Nürburgring to try to agree on a final set of regulations for 2010.  It starts off positively with the following:

All changes have now been agreed subject only to the maintenance of the minimum weight at 620 kg and the signing of a legally binding agreement between all the teams competing in 2010 to reduce costs to the level of the early 1990s within two years, as promised by the FOTA representative in Paris on 24 June.

Great!  But wait!  What’s this next paragraph?

The eight FOTA teams were invited to attend the meeting to discuss their further proposals for 2010. Unfortunately no discussion was possible because FOTA walked out of the meeting.

WTF?  Seriously, WTF!?!

FOTA subsequently issued their version of events.

During the course of this meeting, the team managers were informed by Mr Charlie Whiting of the FIA that, contrary to previous agreements, the eight FOTA teams are not currently entered into the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship and have no voting rights in relation to the technical and sporting regulations thereof.

This is just bizarre.

So the FOTA teams are not entered into the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship?  Then what the hell was that list the FIA published on 24 June? This one here.  The one that says “The following teams have been accepted for the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship” and then goes on to list the 13 teams, including all FOTA teams.

I can’t say it any better than Joe.

Stop!! Who cares about this shit? What about the racing?

Image: Williams

After a long three week break the season continues with the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring.  It is the home Grand Prix for fully one quarter of the drivers on the grid but realistically there is only one German with a chance of standing on the top step on Sunday.

Sebastian Vettel comes to the Nürburgring fresh from his victory at Silverstone and he will be hoping to maintain that momentum in front of his home crowd and further narrow the gap to Championship leader Jenson Button.  It will be Vettel’s first time around the Ring in an F1 car but he has raced (and won) there before in everything from karts to F3 and Renault World Series.

Timo Glock is another German yet to experience the Nürburgring in Formula One but, like Vettel, he has won there before in other classes.  After making it through to Q3 in Britain Glock just missed out on points in the race but he is hopeful of a strong finish in Germany:

I’ve had some good races so far and it has been nice to be battling at the front quite often. This weekend is another chance to do that and I can’t wait.

Despite having a famous Finnish father, Nico Rosberg is actually a German citizen.  He set the third fastest lap at Silverstone and ended the race in fifth which boosted him to seventh in the Drivers’ Championship and Williams to fifth in the Constructors’ Championship – ahead of McLaren.

Rosberg is obviously at home on the circuit.  In this video he talks us through a lap of the Ring – blindfolded.

Nick Heidfeld will be sporting a special helmet design for his home race but it will take more than a fresh coat of paint to turn the BMW Sauber F1.09 into a race winning machine.  Two years ago Heidfeld became the first driver in 30 years to pilot an F1 car around the old Nordschleife circuit, christened The Green Hell by Jackie Stewart.

Heidfeld is in real danger of being beaten by compatriot Adrian Sutil on Sunday.  Force India have been steadily improving all season and if Sutil hadn’t gone off in a big way in qualifying he may have finished in the points in the British Grand Prix.  There is a chance of rain on Sunday and if that happens then it is quite possible Adrian Sutil could score Force India’s first points.

To make your predictions in round 9 of the F1 Buzz prediction game (and be in with a chance to win some nice prizes), just leave a comment on this post with your driver predictions for the race in the following format:

Pole:
First:
Second:
Third:
Fastest lap:

Remember, the deadline for entries is start of qualifying on Saturday, that’s 12:00 GMT.

Good luck!

Image & video: Williams