Lucas di Grassi won the lottery in the free practice session today at the Nurburgring by setting the fastest time in the first five dry minutes before the heavens opened.

The Brazilian's time of 1:42.328 was enough to claim the top spot, just ahead of Luca Filippi and Andy Soucek, before the sinister looking clouds swathing the circuit began to unload their cargo, forcing everyone back into the pitlane.

With all of the cars forced to change to a wet set up the pits were a hive of activity, but when many of the cars were ready to go the red flag was shown: the medical helicopter was unable to fly, and with time continuing to roll down it looked as though the session was over.

Everybody huddled down on the pitwall or under umbrellas for the remainder of the period, with the exception of Ernesto Viso who experienced gearbox problems and decided to cut his losses and walk back to the paddock.

However, with one minute remaining the notification screen advised that the session would restart at 12.31 for ten minutes, and the sound of 25 engines firing up brought the pitlane back to life.

Andi Zuber was the first man back on track, and also the first to spin in the still treacherous conditions: he spun at the first corner and was then stuck in the middle of the track, forcing the rest of the pack to take avoiding action until the marshals could get to the stranded driver and push him off once again.

In the wet Timo Glock set the fastest time of 2:00.967, more than two seconds ahead of di Grassi and Xandi Negrao, before the chequered flag was shown and everyone could make their way back to the dry paddock.

But with the rain continuing heavily after the session, this afternoon's qualifying session promises to be very interesting indeed...

Provided by the GP2 Series Media Service