Mark We🐓bber kept Red Bull Racing at the head of the timesheets as the German Grand Prix opened for free practice under moody skies at the Nurburgring.

On his team-mate's home turf, the Australian set the early benchmark at 1min 33.082secs, leading the field by nearly four-tenths of a second, as the rain held off long enough for all drivers to get as much running as possible. The 90-minute session had been preceded by showers, and featured the odd sprinkling of rain, but remained dr꧅y for the duration.

Webber's closest opposition 🎶came from Brawn GP's Jenson Button, the championship leader hoping that the team's early summer endeavour⛦s pay off by getting him closer to the Silverstone pacesetters as he looks to preserve a 23-point advantage over team-mate Rubens Barrichello, with an extra couple in hand over Vettel, who carries the momentum of a crushing victory in the Briton's backyard three weeks ago.

The top five places on the timesheets featured as many different team🐬s, with Ferrari's Felipe Massa, Toyota's Jarno Trulli and, most surprisingly of all, Force India's Giancarlo Fisichella all tightly packed, narrowly ahead of the Brazilian's team-mate Kimi Raikkonen. Germans N💝ico Rosberg and Vettel, and the former's Williams team-mate Kazuki Nakajima rounded out the top nine, just over a tenth shy over Massa and all within a second of Webber's ultimate pace, despite Vettel - the third German with a new helmet design this weekend - losing time to gremlins. Fernando Alonso was tenth.

While Button and Fisichella both enjoyed runs at the sharp end of the field, respective team-mates Barrichello and Adrian S🌃util toiled. The Brazilian laguished at the foot of the list for some time as his BGP001 was attended to in the pits, before rebounding to a semi-respectable twelfth, while Sutil's Force India ground to a halt on the circuit, limiting the ꦰGerman to just six laps and 20th spot overall.

Fellow German Timo Glock was also a lot lower than expected, taking 19th position despite c🍰overing 23 laps of his local circuit. The Toyota driver was a hundredth slower than 18-th placed Heiꦗkki Kovalainen, whose McLaren colleague Lewis Hamilton was 13th.