Also, Red Bull Racing, McLaren or Ferrari couldn't have lost their respective Constructors' Championship placings during this event.

After Friday's two practice sessions, Lewis Hamilton bleakly summed up his chances of challenging Red Bull and Ferrari saying: "We won't find an answer tomorrow.

In the first free practice session, Fernando Alonso set the fastest time followed by Mark Webber and then Sebastian Vettel.

Another home driver, Timo Glock, also left the track, spun on the wet grass at the bottom of a hill, and luckily escaped being beached on the high curb.

Kamui Kobayashi was the most surprising driver to drop out in the first part of qualifying, where he only set a time fast enough for his Sauber to be in 18th place.

The Indian said he was happy with his lap as he had never driven the circuit as an F1 driver, run the car with low fuel and slicks, used brakes not suited to his style, or used much KERS or DRS before.

After Q1, on the way back to the pit lane, Timo Glock commented to his engineers on the car-to-pit radio that they were making it "difficult for him".

Although, Alguersuari moved up to 16th and Kobayashi into 17th once Buemi was excluded form qualifying due to a fuel irregularity demoting him to 24th position.

Mexican rookie Sergio Pérez out-qualified his teammate again with 15th spot, behind the two Williams cars; Pastor Maldonado not in Q3, yet ahead of F1 veteran Rubens Barrichello on the seventh row.

Force India's Paul di Resta and Nick Heidfeld in the Renault were very close to making the cut, but were both beaten by their teammates and stayed 12th and 11th respectively.

Lewis Hamilton started the session by initially setting provisional pole, although he was quickly beaten by Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

Vettel then improved his lap, but stayed third – the first time since Monza the previous year he had not qualified on the front row; but, he was only 0.137 seconds behind pole position.

Jenson Button was disappointed after he qualified seventh, 1.2 seconds behind Hamilton, he stated it was due to lack of grip and understeer during his lap.

Massa had made another good start but after being on the outside of Vettel at Turn 1, he eventually slipped behind Nico Rosberg into sixth place.

On the fourth lap, Alonso ran wide at Turn 2 getting a wheel on the wet grass, forcing him onto the tarmac.

Heidfeld received a drive-through penalty for causing an avoidable accident with di Resta, but did not have time to serve it.

During the pit stop phase the two Mercedes cars were closing on Petrov's Renault in the DRS zone leading to the Veedol Chicane.

Button, like Sutil, was only passed in the pit-line and not on the track, although his bad luck continued from Silverstone and he suffered his second successive mechanical retirement, with a hydraulics failure.

In the second pit-stop phase Webber pitted first, but was lapping slowly after stop struggling to get the new tyres up to temperature.

The mechanical grip of Hamilton's McLaren in cold conditions helped him, and he got past Webber in the stops with the opposite effect of the undercut.

After the race, Fernando Alonso stopped his Ferrari on the circuit, and got a lift back to parc ferme on the sidepod of Mark Webber's Red Bull.