Raikkonen wins pole, Hamilton crashes

Nurburg, Germany (Sports Network) - Kimi Raikkonen captured the pole for Sunday's Grand Prix of Europe Formula One race. The No.6 Ferrari circled the 3.217 miles, 13-turn, road course in one minute, 31.450 seconds to edge out two-time World Champion Fernando Alonso.
However, the most important fact of the day was not the pole win by Raikkonen, but the fact that points leader Lewis Hamilton put his car into a tire wall. It appears that a right-front tire failure was the cause of the incident. Hamilton was taken to the medical center by ambulance but did give a wave to the fans from the stretcher.
According to team boss Ron Dennis, Hamilton has no serious injuries or broken bones, but will be kept under observation for at least a couple of hours.
Starting on the front row with Raikkonen will be Alonso, who posted a second- best time of 1:31.741.
Felipe Massa (1:31.778) and Nick Heidfeld (1:31.840) will start in row two.
While Hamilton and Raikkonen led all the practice sessions, Alonso was quickest in the first qualifying session that saw the elimination of Jenson Button, Scott Speed, Vitantonio Liuzzi, David Coulthard, Adrian Sutil and newcomer Marcus Winkelhock.
Winkelhock is a replacement for Christijan Albers who parted company with the Spyker team in a contract dispute. He is the son of Manfred Winkelhock, a former F1 driver and the team's official test driver.
Massa won the second session. Dropped from the final competition were: Nico Rosberg, Giancarlo Fisichella, Rubens Barrichello, Alex Wurz, Anthony Davidson and Takuma Sato.
While Ferrari drivers have won five of the nine Formula One races in 2007 they still find themselves trailing McLaren in every other category.
Hamilton is the series points leader having won twice (Canada, United States) and been on the podium in all nine races. Hamilton's teammate, Alonso, is second overall with two wins and six podiums. As a team, McLaren owns a 25- point lead over Ferrari in the manufacturer's championship (128-103).
Yet there is still reason for optimism at Ferrari. While the Ferrari lacked the speed in the two North American races, when the series returned to Europe their speed miraculously returned.
At Magny-Cours it was all Ferrari as Raikkonen and Massa swept to a one-two finish. The series next went to Silverstone and again Raikkonen led the way.
The pole victory was Raikkonen's second of the season and 13th of his Formula One career.
The race is set to drop the green flag on Sunday at 8 a.m. (et).