Hello and welcome to our LIVE commentary of the German Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton starts on pole position from Sebastian Vettel.

The first gaggle of cars have stopped to replace the soft compound with the medium. Expect the leaders to stop in a few laps.

Five laps completed and the Red Bulls still looking good. Vettel leads Webber by 1.1 seconds. Di Resta and Vergne pit and the Force India is released straight into the Toro Rosso and they nearly collide. The stewards will have a look at that!

MASSA OUT! DRS is now enabled and Massa has spun at the outside of turn one. He’s stalled and Massa is out of the race!

Vettel’s lead is up to a second on lap 3 but there’s nothing between the top three really as Hamilton tried to catch the Red Bulls after a disappointing start. Ricciardo has passed Alonso for seventh place but the Ferraris are on the harder tyre.

Also a bad start from Rosberg who has dropped down to 12th. Perez passes team-mate Button for 10th with a good, aggressive move at the start of lap 2.

And the German Grand Prix is underway! And Hamilton has been squeezed out by both Vettel and Webber. A bad start from the Brit. Raikkonen remains fourth from Grosjean, Massa and Alonso. Great news from the Red Bulls.

Five minutes to lights out and the tension is really building. Remember, Sebastian Vettel has never won the German Grand Prix and Lewis Hamilton will be trying his level best to prevent him from doing so in this 60 lap race. Hamilton won last time out back at the Nurburgring in 2011. Fasten your seat belts!

BREAKING NEWS: Lewis Hamilton’s front right brake pad is smoking! Mechanics are spraying some releasing agent on it to cool it down. Not great news for the Brit, let’s hope it’s not too much of an issue…

Jenson Button – P9. “The car was working all right we were four tenths off the quickest in Q2 and if we ran the softer tyre in Q3 we would have been up there with Ricciardo.”

WEATHER WATCH: It’s a warm day at the Nurburgring. Air temperature is 23C and track temperature 41C. It will be interesting to see how long the softer compound lasts.

There are 20 minutes to lights out and the cars are currently conducting their pre-race systems check installation laps. The Nurburgring offers very different demands to Silverstone with significant set-up changes required.

Whilst the majority of the front runners opted to set their quick laps on the soft compound tyres, both Ferraris will start on the longer lasting medium compound, which could offer them a tactical advantage. Felipe Massa starts seventh and Fernando Alonso eighth whilst both Jenson Button and Nico Hulkenberg will also start on the mediums after choosing not to set a final lap in Q3.

The news coming out of the Nurburgring this morning is that Caterham’s Charles Pic has been handed a five-place grid penalty for changing a part on his gearbox. Pic had initially qualified 19th ahead of his team-mate and both Marussias.