Second straight pole for Farfus as Paffett beats Spengler

Augusto Farfus took his second consecutive pole position for the final race of the year at Hockenheim. The Brazilian was a tenth quicker than title contenders Gary Paffett and Bruno Spengler.

The Mercedes driver looked set to claim pole but made a mistake at Sachs and lost time. The Brit was however able to beat his Canadian rival by a mere six thousandths.

Mattias Ekström was the other man in Q4, putting his Audi in fourth. The Swede will start ahead of a surprisingly competitive Joey Hand and Martin Tomczyk, the two team-mates occupying the third row ahead of fellow BMW driver Dirk Werner.

Timo Scheider will start in eighth ahead of Edoardo Mortara, while Jamie Green saw his title hopes fade away as he will start from tenth place.

The session was especially tight, with the gaps between the cars often being smaller than a couple of hundredths.

David Coulthard and Susie Wolff, who both announced their retirement from the series at the end of the weekend, will start from the last row.