Michael Schumacher will start from third place for the second race running after another strong wet weather performance at Hockenheim.
The former champ only just made it out of the dry Q1 session after being hampered by a car problem, but when it mattered in Q3 he secured fourth place, before gaining a spot from Mark Webber’s grid penalty.
“We had a little technical issue that we had to solve in Q1, our car wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do,” said Schumacher. “But finally we fixed it and we were able to perform.
“I was just lucky enough to make it, with a tenth of a second, in P17. It was a little bit of a scary moment. In the wet we were always at the top end, just a bit unfortunate that we couldn’t keep that right to the end. We couldn’t get two good laps in at the end. Plus our tyres just started to lose the momentum. Alonso was clever enough to find out about that and change.”
Early in Q3 Schumacher could be heard on the radio saying that conditions were too dangerous, but he said the track improved: “Initially it was probably a little bit over the top, but then it developed very quickly, thanks to no further rain, so it was OK to run. But difficult.”
Asked about his long time reputation as a ‘rainmaster’, Schumacher had an interesting answer: “Look at Malaysia, I thought exactly the same, and I was nowhere! I think it’s a package. If the package is in my hands I can still do reasonably good. I would naturally love to see rain tomorrow, because we’re definitely stronger in rain conditions than we are in the dry, but we have to figure out what we can do in the dry as well.”
Regarding the race, Michael will be happy to hang onto his third place.
“I guess we’ll be very happy if we can keep in that position. It would be beautiful. We predict our strength to be fifth to seventh position, but if we can make a podium, that would be optimum.
“It’s good for the home crowd, good for our supporters. We have so many people coming here to support us, particularly tomorrow we’re going to see a lot more, so it’s a nice way to start the race.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Interestingly, Ross said that the two drivers had exact opposite problems with the tyres. How you can possibly cope with that? Hope for the best and get on with it, who knows,They may have another China moment or again, they may not! Its an odd way to go motor racing, spending millions on the car and having very little idea of how the tyres will react, and they wern’t the only ones!