[6] After out-qualifying Toro Rosso drivers Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo in Valencia, Caterham announced plans to bring several upgrades for the CT-01 chassis to the race.

[12] Dani Clos replaced Narain Karthikeyan at HRT for the first practice session,[13] having previously driven the car at the Spanish Grand Prix.

[14] Valtteri Bottas took Bruno Senna's seat at Williams, while Jules Bianchi drove Nico Hülkenberg's car for Force India for the duration of the session.

Fernando Alonso and the Force Indias of Paul di Resta and Jules Bianchi elected not to set lap times in the face of the difficult conditions.

[18] Bruno Senna brought out a red flag that resulted in a ten-minute stop to the session when he hit a patch of standing water at Becketts, spinning and crashing heavily into the barriers.

[19] Qualifying started in wet conditions, and with the threat of more rain on the way, a queue of cars formed at the end of pit lane in the minutes before the session began.

Vitaly Petrov out-qualified teammate Heikki Kovalainen for the second time in 2012, with the Caterhams starting in eighteenth and nineteenth once grid penalties had been applied.

Despite his spin, Glock's fastest lap saw him start twentieth, ahead of both HRT drivers, with Pedro de la Rosa once again out-qualifying Narain Karthikeyan.

Pérez chose the intermediate compound which quickly proved to be the wrong choice as he rapidly plummeted down the order, and finished slowest.

Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo finished thirteenth and fourteenth, ahead of Bruno Senna who admitted to being "too conservative" in qualifying.

Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa quickly locked out the front row of the grid, until late laps from Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel left the Red Bull cars first and second.

An engine failure on Vitaly Petrov's Caterham on his way round to the grid meant he had to return to the pits and retire the car before the race had even begun.

Webber and Schumacher followed him round in their same positions, but Vettel fell prey to Massa and Räikkönen, before quickly getting back past the Finn.

Paul di Resta, in tenth place at the time, suffered a puncture as a result of his right rear tyre coming into contact with Romain Grosjean's front wing at the start of the Wellington straight.

At the start of lap 50, Mark Webber was closing in on race leader Fernando Alonso, with Vettel shortly behind his teammate in 3rd place.