Changeable weather wreaked havoc on the F1 formbook in qualifying at the Nurburgring, but shining like two beacons were the performances of Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton. The Australian Red Bull driver took pole position for the first time in his career to stake a genuine claim to be Jenson Button’s championship challenger, while Hamilton revelled in an extensively updated McLaren to bounce back to the sharp end of the grid with fifth fastest time, ending a depressingly bad recent run.

Button starts the race from third position, behind Brawn teammate Rubens Barrichello, but ahead of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel.

Webber was in stunning form in the wet conditions throughout, comfortably eclipsing teammate Vettel, who, in the season to date, has held the upper hand within the team. “At this level you need everything going for you,” said an exhilarated Webber, “and it was very challenging out there knowing which tyres — intermediates or dries — to be on at which time. The team made the right calls and I felt very confident. I’m in a fantastic position to fight for my first victory.”

Webber emerged on top only in the dying seconds of a tense closely-fought session where Barrichello, Button and Hamilton were all in contention.

As befitting an Australian, Webber has a fascination with all sports. Fresh from watching his friend Lleyton Hewitt at Wimbledon last week, he was hoping his qualifying achievements yesterday may have knocked the cricket from today’s sporting front pages, and quipped: “I think the rain saved the English from a beating by our boys \. But I guess it helped me, though I’m sure we’d have been in good shape in the dry too. The car is really working now and it gives me real hope for the rest of the season.”

Webber currently lies in fourth place in the championship, 28.5 points behind Button, but just 3.5 behind teammate Vettel. With nine races left and a car that appears to be faster than the Brawn, it is feasible that one of the Red Bull drivers could mount a serious championship challenge. But it would mean taking an average of more than three points from Button at each race, when the gap between first and second is only two points.

Red Bull therefore need to work strategically as a team and ideally one driver needs to be in support of the other’s challenge. Neither Vettel nor Webber will want to fall into the support role so Webber’s pole was a critical achievement at a critical moment in the season. If he can follow that up with his maiden win today, it makes the team’s choices even more difficult than they already are. A Red Bull team that splits its success between each driver for the balance of the season plays into the hands of Button’s championship chances.

In trying to beat Webber today, Vettel has the added complications of having the two Brawns between him and his teammate and having the likely fast-starting Kers-assisted McLarens just behind him, potentially delaying him further.

“My last lap wasn’t magnificent,” shrugged the Silverstone victor, disappointed not to have shown better in front of his home fans, “and that’s why I’m not on the front row. The car was good enough to have been there but I simply didn’t do it.”

With more changeable weather predicted for today, however, qualifying form may have little to do with the result. A race with an element of chaos could be the perfect opportunity for Hamilton, who was delighted with the extent of the performance boost provided by his comprehensively updated car. “It feels so much better than before,” he reported. “It feels great to have a car that you can really push into the corners.” But for a slight mis-timing of his final run, he felt that even his fifth position could have been improved upon. “The track was drying out at the end and I finished my final lap as the track was still improving,” he said. “Others who were running later than me probably managed to get the best of it, but even so I can’t be disappointed.”

A total nose-to-tail aerodynamic upgrade of the McLaren has found what the team’s simulation tools tell them is an improvement of 0.8 sec per lap — a huge amount in F1 terms. It has helped Hamilton move from second last place on the grid at Silverstone to fifth here. He was quick to praise the effort required to get all the new parts produced for this race rather than at the Hungarian Grand Prix in two weeks’ time, as originally planned.

So much of a rush was it that there was time only to produce the parts for Hamilton’s car and not that of his teammate Heikki Kovalainen, who had to be content with only the new front wing. Nonetheless, the Finn backed up Hamilton’s effort with a solid qualifying performance of his own that put him sixth on the grid. With their Kers power-boost devices, the McLarens could be set to be even better placed after the first corner.

A sudden shower of rain early in the second session made for chaotic conditions as drivers attempted to graduate to the final run-off that determines the first 10 grid positions.

Barrichello found a brief window of opportunity where the track dried out enough for dry weather tyres, and Hamilton and Button produced quality high pressure laps at this stage to get through but other fancied runners, including Renault’s Fernando Alonso, made errors at the crucial moment and failed to graduate.

It presented a rare opportunity for those in less competitive cars to shine, and Adrian Sutil used his finely honed wet-weather skills to get the unfancied Force India into the run-off, where he qualified in an excellent seventh — ahead of the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen.

- Mark Hughes writes for Autosport magazine