BBC F1 pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz: "Jenson Button is trying in this first session a new rear wing that has a more powerful DRS overtaking aid but a little less overall downforce. The team tried it at Silverstone as well, but were unable to run it because of the rule change restricting the use of exhaust gases to generate downforce, which hit them badly because they had exploited the blown diffuser area more aggressively then Red Bull and Ferrari. Now that has been abandoned, they are expecting to be back in the hunt for the podium in Germany. Another change on the car are new finds next to the wing mirrors - these clean up airflow to the rear wing and have been seen on various cars in recent years."
0940: Vettel is now the fastest man on out there. He posts a 1:32.536, which is 0.460 fastest than Hamilton's best. He's on the options. Alonso out and about on the harder prime tyres now. He sets a 1:33.586, which places him in fourth, and Anthony Davidson speculates that the Spaniard is the fastest man on those tyres as he thinks Hamilton and Webber, who are in second and third, set their times on the options.
BBC pit-lane reporter Lee McKenzie at the Nurburgring: "With six German drivers on the grid and a reigning German world champion in Sebastian Vettel, many of the contingent of 'home' drivers were saying they owed their chance and success to Michael Schumacher. The 42-year-old was Germany's first world champion in 1994 and then went on to win it a record seven times. His Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg acknowledged the fact that while it was his father - and 1982 champ - Keke who inspired him to go racing, it was Schumacher who created the appetite for F1 in Germany, leading to more viewers on television and more sponsors for young drivers coming through the ranks."
MarkyBryans on Twitter: "Rain, rain come to stay! Time for another scintillating performance from JB this weekend. He will be head & shoulders ahead... "
0931: Hamilton is flying at the minute. Not literally, obviously, that would be silly. He's improved to a 1:32.996. Vettel is on a flier too, his first one, and that's a 1:37.620. Good enough for eighth. It is worth mentioning that Karun Chandhok is driving for Team Lotus this weekend, with Jarno Trulli making way. Narain Karthikeyan is in the Hispania this morning.
0926: Plenty of movement times-wise. Hamilton is now top with a 1:34.982 and he is followed by Nico Rosberg (1:35.046), Michael Schumacher (1:36.457), Alguersuari (1:37.391) and Kamui Kobayashi (1:37.737).
BBC F1 pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz: "Renault have introduced major changes to their car for this race in an attempt to get back to competitiveness. The innovative forward-exiting exhaust has been dropped in favour of a more conventional Red Bull-style layout, with the gases exiting either side of the gearbox and flowing into the diffuser. On Friday, only Nick Heidfeld is running the new exhausts, while Vitaly Petrov's car has not been altered. Given the difficulty in swapping between the two arrangements - which require a different chassis - that is likely to be the case for the rest of the weekend."
0920: And we have a few times on the board at the moment. Renault's Nick Heidfeld has a 1:37.987 on the board, with Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari second after a 1:40.333. By the way we have a very special guest in BBC Towers with us today, and sitting alongside me is... drum roll please... pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz, who will be giving me a snippets throughout practice.
BBC F1 puit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz: "The flashing lights on Felipe Massa's steering wheel shows that he is doing a constant speed aero check for Ferrari and he is testing further upgrades to the race-winning improvements they brought to Silverstone."
BBC pit-lane reporter Lee McKenzie: "Ferrari performed some magic to win their first race of the season at Silverstone two weeks ago and I met Fernando Alonso to see if he had any tricks up his sleeve this weekend in Germany. As it happened, when we gave him a pack of cards the Spaniard wowed me with a three-card trick. It was very impressive. Watch out for it during Sunday's race programme on BBC One. Alonso also told me sometimes he goes into the garage on Sunday morning and entertains his mechanics with a card trick or two. Alonso doesn't think his win in Silverstone was a one-off and sees no reason why he shouldn't be fighting with Red Bull again here."
0908: All the drivers have been out and about. But there's been no times set as yet. A few of the drivers have gone out on the softer tyres. One of them is Lewis Hamilton and he has a lock up early on, which puts a big flat spot on them. By the way, that soft tyre is new version from Pirelli, who are evaluating it during Friday practice.
BBC Radio 5 live F1 analyst Anthony Davidson: "I don't know how fast Ferrari are going to be here. They have had an up and down season. They have got a faster car than what they had in Barcelona. The car seems to be stronger but it is hard to predict how they will go."
0900: And we are off. We are quite busy early doors as the cars pile out for their installation laps. Still looking moody out there but there's no rain.
BBC Sport's Sarah Holt at the Nurburgring: "Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button were both confident they will be back on form in Germany this weekend, especially now the ban on off-throttle blowing of diffusers has been postponed until next year. The first step towards a recovery begins, as always, during Friday practice and Button explained what lies ahead for McLaren. 'We are putting more downforce on the car here and we should bed in pretty quickly and find our feet,' he said. 'Most of the work we'll be doing is aerodynamic checks of the new upgrades and engine modes and then we'll start going into set-up work. Lewis and I might both go in completely different directions from ideas we had in the simulator and then at the end of the day you sit down with all the information and discuss what direction we will go in over the weekend.'"
0849: Right then, here's the plan for today. First practice starts at 0900 BST with second practice getting going at 1300 BST. It's all on the Red Button and in the console at the top of this page, FP1 is on BBC 5 live sports extra, while there's also this live text commentary thing with me. Ace. Now this is your text commentary so here's how you get in touch.
BBC Sport's Sarah Holt at the Nurburgring: "Formula 1 has left behind the Northamptonshire flatlands around Silverstone and travelled to Germany's Eifel mountains, 60 miles south of Cologne. High among the pea-green fields, sombre grey wind turbines and dense forests sits the Nurburgring, home to this year's German Grand Prix. The race is officially being called 'The Halfway Point of the Season' - and with a second race in Hungary next week the teams have plenty of work to do in the next 10 days. The topography of the region means the weather here can be fickle, and grey cloud is already threatening the patches of blue sky as I type… "
0838: And there's me going on about the weather, I'm getting pictures from Germany and it's pretty grey. So someone else has got our clouds then. Here's more from our very own Sarah Holt...
0834: Hi. How are things? The sun is out in west London. It's out I tell you. Maybe one day we'll get this thing called 'summer' everyone gets so excited about. This is the halfway point of the 2011 season and a certain Sebastian Vettel leads the way by a whopping 80 points. Is there challenger in the field ready to pounce? The next couple of days could tell us a bit more.
0830: This time last year, the words "Fernando is faster than you" became part of the F1 lexicon. In 2011, team orders are still the talk of the town. Good morning and a very warm welcome to the German Grand Prix.
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