Good afternoon, F1 fans, and welcome to our live coverage of qualifying for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.

POLE FOR ROSBERG! The Mercedes man grabs pole on home soil and his final time of 1:16.540 is enough to secure him the front spot on the grid for the Grand Prix tomorrow at Hockenheim! He's absolutely delighted, understandably.

Bottas goes purple through the second sector, but he's not going to break Rosberg's heart late on here.

Rosberg's 1:16.540 looks set to give him pole and there are already handshakes in the Mercedes garage.

It's chaotic now on track with all 10 drivers out and this is getting very nervy for the leader Rosberg.

Perez goes sixth fastest so there's still work to be done, but he's shaping up very well.

Massa misses out by three tenths of a second as Rosberg continues to lead from Bottas.

Hulkenberg makes his mark nice and early but Rosberg is quick to beat his effort and top the timesheets with a 1:16.540.

Five of the 10 cars are now out on track and Bottas has looked very good so far today.

Raikkonen looked absolutely devastated as he left the pit lane after struggling again so badly and dropping out. Now, can anyone take pole from Rosberg?

Button slips out as Perez forces his way in at the last moment with a very fine effort. Raikkonen, Vergne, Gutierrez and Grosjean also fail to make it through. Rosberg looks all but certain to take pole unless something very surprising happens.

Raikkonen is currently in the drop zone and he must claw himself out - he's currently 1.164s off the pace.

Kvyat veers off the track in alarming fashion before managing to regain control of his car, while Vettel goes third fastest, half a second off Rosberg.

Rosberg is now the leader once more for Mercedes as he seeks to capitalise on Hamilton's misfortune. His time is 1:17.109.

Now Bottas leads from Massa with a 1:17.353 and it's super-soft tyres all the way now.

Hulkenberg has the fastest time so far in Q2 with eight other drivers currently out on the track. He sets a time of 1:18.270.

Mercedes have just tweeted an update regarding Hamilton's crash: "The cause of the crash was a right front brake disc failure..."

We're under way in Q2 and Hamilton is back from the medical centre and reportedly "sore from the crash but okay".

Rosberg comes through with the fastest time from Q1 in 1:17.631 and the men to miss out are Sutil, Bianchi, Maldonado, Kobayashi and Chilton.

Well, this entire session will now be overshadowed by that Hamilton crash and all the talk is about the Mercedes man's incident out of turn 9.

Rosberg has the fastest lap with a 1:17.631 and while he flies on, Hamilton will have a full medical check up as a precaution.