The championship leader, Lewis Hamilton, endured a frustrating start to his German Grand Prix weekend as he crashed during a rain-hit first practice and was forced to sit out almost the entire second session while his car was being repaired. But with only 12 minutes of track time at Hockenheim and in running for just 10 laps - Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari completed 48 as a contrast - Hamilton still produced a credible performance.
The championship leader managed to post the seventh-quickest time, finishing 0.739 seconds behind Fernando Alonso as Ferrari and Red Bull Racing locked out the top four places. But it is the 78 minutes of valuable running that will hurt him and the team the most as his mechanics spent four hours repairing a car that rammed into a tyre wall during the opening 90-minute session.
Rain had fallen over Hockenheim since 7.30am local time and did not relent until four hours later, 30 minutes into the session, leaving pools of standing water across the track. Despite being on wet tyres, a number of drivers were sent spinning, with the biggest casualty being Hamilton. After finally setting his first timed lap almost 65 minutes in, the 25-year-old's session did not last too much longer.
Coming slowly out of what is now known as Bernie Ecclestone Kurve, Hamilton did nothing more than put a wheel on a damp part of the circuit that at that time was beginning to show a drier line in places. That immediately led to his McLaren getting out of shape, sending Hamilton sliding across the wet grass, and with no traction he ploughed nose first into a barrier.
The impact, although not severe, was enough to send him spinning around, resulting in a second collision with the tyres that damaged his left-rear wheel. Over the team radio Hamilton succinctly summed the situation up, saying: "The car's in the wall and is damaged – heavily."
McLaren then performed wonders to get him back out on track with a few minutes to spare in what was a predominantly dry session other than a few spots of rain now and again. On only his second timed lap Hamilton's pace was enough to put him within 0.069sec of team-mate Jenson Button, who was 14th at the time.
Hamilton eventually finished with a lap of 1min 17.004sec, seven-tenths of a second faster than Button who finished down in 15th and who completed 36 laps. His time will be encouraging to McLaren, who were again testing the performance-enhancing exhaust blown diffuser that was ditched after Friday practice at the British grand prix two weeks ago.
It was Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, though, who held sway with a lap of 1min 16.265sec, just 0.029sec ahead of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, who had an engine change at the start of the second session. Their team-mates - Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Red Bull's Mark Webber - were third and fourth fastest followed by the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg, who required a new front wing at one stage, and Michael Schumacher.
Behind Hamilton came Renault's Robert Kubica and the Williams duo of Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg in ninth and 10th.
The drier conditions led to a 'normal' timesheet for the second session as the new teams in Lotus, Virgin and Hispania Racing occupied the final six places. Hispania's Bruno Senna and Sakon Yamamoto filled the bottom two spots, the latter 6.801sec adrift of Alonso.
