Hamilton goes quickest again

It had been suggested, after Hamilton was quickest on Friday at the end of the two 90-minute sessions, he was merely putting on a good show in his McLaren on the home turf of engine suppliers Mercedes.

Hamilton's car does boast a considerable upgrade rushed through for this race at the Nurburgring, to such a degree the team had no time to fit the new parts to team-mate Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren, underlined by the fact the Finn finished 19th.

The world champion, who so far has just nine points to his name and has failed to score in the last four grands prix, seemingly has a genuine shot of competing with the front-runners again this weekend.

Hamilton finished Saturday's hour-long run with a time of one minute 31.121 seconds, a second faster than his hot lap of Friday, with the 24-year-old quickest in the first two of the three sectors.

Renault's Fernando Alonso and Ferrari's Felipe Massa were second and third overall, both just over two tenths of a second down on the Briton.

The Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel, who will be going for his third pole in a row in qualifying, and Mark Webber were fourth and fifth, but close to half a second adrift.

They were followed by Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, the Toyota of Jarno Trulli, and then the Williams duo, Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima, with the latter 0.6secs off the pace.

Championship leader Jenson Button, complaining of the cold and the inability to get any heat into his tyres with temperatures again a chilly 12 degrees centigrade, was 11th and almost a second down.

Brawn GP team-mate Rubens Barrichello spent the first half-hour in the pits as the team resolved an electrical issue before eventually finishing 14th.