Lewis Hamilton's former teammate Nico Rosberg has described the Brit's attitude to the mechanical failures which saw him qualify in just 14th as something he'd "never seen" from him before.

The German enjoyed a fierce rivalry with the four-time world champion, spanning between 2013 and 2016, when the two drove for Mercedes.

Having battled so closely with the Brit, Rosberg is perhaps in a great position to comment on his former friend, and his latest body language is thought to be of concern.

"This is something I'm a bit worried about," Rosberg said while working in his pundit role at Sky Sports.

"I've never seen that body language from him before.

"We saw it for the first time at Silverstone, and now again for a very long time there - disbelief, or something.

"Of course it's tough, but this is a new body language, I've never seen that from Lewis."

A last-gasp effort from Hamilton's closest championship rival Sebastian Vettel secured pole ahead of Valtteri Bottas.

"This is such a huge setback," Rosberg continued. "Because Vettel is out there, the car is flying, he is odds-on favourite to win the race, and Lewis again has to start from somewhere back.

"So that's going to be a very difficult day tomorrow for him."

According to the former champion, Hamilton's troubles came as a result of going off track with speed at Turn 1, running over the kerbs.

"To me it looked like he made a mistake at Turn 1, went really wide, and he had some big, big hits because he was off the track there, and right after that the problem started.

"So I think probably the gearbox broke with those big, big impacts, and that's it."

Hamilton's desperation to continue was made evident as he tried to push the stricken WO9 back to the pits. He spoke about the incident after returning to the paddock.

"I didn't really understand exactly what had happened so in my mind I was thinking, 'Get the car back to the track', but they asked me to turn the car off," Hamilton explained.

"I jumped out and wanted to push it back but it was so far to go. I saw there was leaking oil and I knew that I had to stop and let the marshals put the car away somewhere. I have the will to not want to give up. I just want to keep pushing."

A blistering flying lap from Vettel was met with huge cheers from his home crowd at Hockenheim, with the German now heavy favourite to be stood on top of the podium at the end of Sunday's race.