Lewis Hamilton stormed to his sixth pole position at the Australian Grand Prix by nearly three-tenths of a second ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas.
Hamilton’s 1m22.188s is the fastest lap around Albert Park and the Brit was in a league of his own.
Kimi Raikkonen could not match the efforts of his team-mate in Q3 and will line-up fourth ahead of Max Verstappen.
Romain Grosjean was an impressive sixth for Haas ahead of Felipe Massa, Carlos Sainz, Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo.
Qualifying in Melbourne began with a 40 per cent chance of rain,
Antonio Giovinazzi was drafted in at the start of final practice after Pascal Wehrlein withdrew from this weekend’s race on fitness grounds.
The battle to make it into Q2 went down to the wire with Marcus Ericsson displacing team-mate Giovinazzi in the dying seconds. The Italian made a small mistake on his final run and will line-up 16th.
Kevin Magnussen made a mistake on his final run at the fast left-right chicane while a fuel flow issue disrupted Stoffel Vandoorne’s qualifying and he will line-up 18th. Lance Stroll and Jolyon Palmer also failed to progress into Q2.
The battle for Q2 was tight again between the midfield runners with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull comfortably making it through.
Sergio Perez missed out on a place in Q3 on the narrowest of margins after it appeared that he was blocked by the Williams of Massa at Turn 13. Nico Hulkenberg will start 12th ahead of Fernando Alonso, in an encouraging session for the Spaniard. Ocon was half a second off Perez while Ericsson was 15th.
Drops of rain began to fall for the final pole position shootout with the three leading teams taking to the track first.
Hamilton led the way with a 1m22.496s, three-tenths clear of Vettel and Bottas.
Ricciardo’s crash at Turn 14 resulted in a brief red flag period which disrupted team-mate Verstappen’s first run.
This left the midfield runners of Massa, Grosjean, Kvyat and Sainz with just one run in Q3.
Grosjean was the first to complete a lap, going fifth on a 1m24.074s.
Bottas temporarily stormed to provisional pole position but was soon beaten by his three-time champion team-mate.
Vettel got to within three-tenths of Hamilton’s benchmark while Raikkonen was eight-tenths off pole.
Massa got ahead of both Toro Rossos for seventh while Ricciardo will line-up 10th pending any incurring penalties for a gearbox change.
