German GP: Strong qualifying session for Sahara Force India

Sahara Force India's Nico Hulkenberg produced his season's best qualifying performance by setting the fifth fastest time at the Formula One German Grand Prix here Saturday while his teammate Paul di Resta was ninth fastest amid wet conditions at the Hockenheimring.

"I feel very excited because it's always special to qualify well, especially at your home race. It was a session that had a bit of everything because we ran on slicks, intermediates and wets," said Hulkenberg after the race. "When you start high up you naturally want to finish high up as well and I hope we can have strong race."

Di Resta too said it was difficult to negotiate the wet conditions but that he was happy to have cracked the top-10. "It was a very difficult session and the rain didn't make life easy for anybody because there was so much aquaplaning on the back straight with two or three big puddles. Still, we made it into the top ten so I'm happy, but you always want to be a bit further up the grid."

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso stormed to his second pole position in a row, ahead of the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.

Force India put up a promising show after a pointless race at Silverstone. Hulkenberg outpaced di Resta in trying conditions to tie their season's qualifying record to 5-5. Webber and Vettel, and Mercedes' Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher also share the Saturday honours in the first 10 races of the season.

With inputs from IANS