World champion Lewis Hamilton sped to his 50th career pole position at the Australian Grand Prix yesterday as Formula One’s new-look qualifying format fizzled out in an embarrassing anticlimax.
Hamilton picked up where he left off in the previous championship season as he destroyed his rivals, including Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg, to claim pole for today’s race in Melbourne.
The three-time champion led almost throughout as he progressively improved his lap time over the three qualifying stages to clock a best time of 1 minute, 23.837 seconds.
Photo: AP
“They were some sexy laps,” Hamilton said afterward, thanking his team for their work on the car.
He is to start inside Rosberg on the race grid with Ferrari pair Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen unable to match his scorching pace and both starting off the second row.
The new elimination qualifying format petered out in the final minutes with Vettel, Raikkonen and Rosberg not bothering to improve their times in the final minutes, bringing matters to a halt.
Photo: Reuters
Hamilton registered the fastest times in all three practice sessions and qualifying.
The German team has ruled Formula One for two years, winning 32 of the 38 races.
Manor Racing’s Pascal Wehrlein was the first man eliminated in the new knock-out qualifying format, which whittles down the field at 90-second intervals.
He was followed by his Indonesian teammate Rio Haryanto, who went into qualifying with a three-place grid penalty for his pit lane crash in final practice.
Hamilton went quicker, clocking 1 minute, 25.351 seconds — nearly a second faster than last year’s pole time — to clinch his place in the second phase of qualifying as the field began to thin.
Red Bull’s Russian driver Daniil Kvyat was the first major casualty of the shoot-out when he missed the cut in Qualifier 1 (Q1).
“Hard to tell” what happened, Kvyat said. “It doesn’t feel great to start the season this way. We have to learn from today.”
Denmark’s Kevin Magnussen in a Renault was the first casualty of Q2, followed by Jolyon Palmer, his English teammate and F1 rookie.
McLaren Honda’s Jenson Button did not even try to improve on his lap time and was already out of his McLaren as the clock ticked down. He was knocked out along with his teammate and two-time world champion Fernando Alonso.
Red Bull’s Australian racer Daniel Ricciardo fought off an imminent threat to stay in contention for Q3.
The last eight for Q3 were Hamilton, Rosberg, Vettel, Carlos Sainz, Ricciardo, Raikkonen, Max Verstappen and Felipe Massa. Hamilton was 0.6 seconds quicker than Vettel in Q2.
Vettel briefly led the timesheets, but Hamilton quickly reasserted command, reeling off a lap half-a-second quicker than the German with 1 minute, 24.133 seconds and then scorching to his best time.
Ricciardo was the first driver knocked out in Q3, followed by Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz, Felipe Massa in his Williams and Dutch youngster Max Verstappen in the other Toro Rosso, leaving Mercedes and Ferrari to fight it out.
However, Ferrari duo Vettel and Raikkonen stayed in the garage along with Rosberg, resigned to the fact that they could not better Hamilton and creating the awkward early finish.
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