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Rosberg on pole for Mercedes in Japan – Vettel leaving Red Bull.

Rosberg beats Hamilton to pole in Japan Lewis Hamilton must have been confident of taking pole for the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka this morning after his resurgence in recent races – in the process taking the lead in the drivers F1 battle – but it wasn’t to be. Hamilton’s car needed a major front end rebuild after he ran wide and hit the barrier in final practice – which may have contributed to his qualifying result – but whatever the excuses it’s Rosberg in front of Hamilton for tomorrow’s race after posting a time 0.197s quicker than the Brit. Behind the two Mercedes cars it’s a Williams second row – with Bottas in third and Massa in fourth – followed by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso in what is fast becoming his default place – 5th – and Daniel Ricciardo in sixth.

German Grand Prix 2012: Alonso on pole for Ferrari

Fernando Alonso put his Ferrari on pole in Hockenheim for the 2012 German Grand Prix, with McLaren trailing far behind. It’s not just the UK that offers F1 a wet experience, the 2012 German Grand Prix in Hockenheim did a very good impression of the British weather for today’s qualifying. Star of the show – once more – was Fernando Alonso who put his Ferrari on pole position for the second time in a row, comfortably beating second place Sebastian Vettel who was half a second slower, just in front of team mate Mark Webber.

New MINI JCW GP laps Nurburgring in 8:23 (video)

We have video of the fastest MINI ever – the MINI John Cooper Works GP II – lapping the Nurburgring in 8:23. We revealed back in April that a new version of the MINI JCW GP was on the way, and MINI got round to confirming that in May when the new MINI John Cooper Works GP was officially revealed. At the time, MINI told us that the new MINI GP could hustle round the Nurburgring a full 19 seconds quicker than the old MINI GP making the new hot MINI the fastest MINI ever made (well, the fastest MINI ever made by BMW, anyway).