Lewis Hamilton cake walked to a dominant pole in Australia, taking the top spot on the grid by beating his team mate by over 6/10ths of a second and third place man Felipe Massa by nearly a second and a half. Behind the dominant silver arrows, Massa put in a great lap to nip the Ferrari’s of Vettel and Raikkonen by mere thousandths. Valtteri Bottas put the second Williams in sixth despite issues with back pain that may put his race chances in jeopardy. The best hometown hero Daniel Ricciardo could manage in his recalcitrant Red Bull was seventh. Toro Rosso rookie Carlos Sainz Jr. put in an incredible performance to claim 8th with the two Lotus cars of Grosjean and Maldonado rounding out the top 10. Neither Manor Marussia driver took part in qualifying, the team stating they were not able to complete the cars in time. McLaren had an even worse time with Button and Magnussen qualifying at the very back of the grid after very limited running in both practice and qualifying. Both Button and Magnussen were over 5 seconds slower than Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes. Here is the grid for the first grand prix of the season.
- Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1:26.327
- Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:26.921
- Felipe Massa, Williams, 1:27.718
- Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 1:27.757
- Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:27.790
- Valtteri Bottas, Williams, 1:28.087
- Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1:28.329
- Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso, 1:28.510
- Romain Grosjean, Lotus, 1:28.560
- Pastor Maldonado, Lotus, 1:29.480
- Felipe Nasr, Sauber, 1:28.800
- Max Verstappen, Toro Rosso, 1:28.868
- Danill Kyvat, Red Bull, 1:29.070
- Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, 1:29.208
- Sergio Perez, Force India, 1:29.209
- Marcus Ericcson, Sauber, 1:31.376
- Jenson Button, McLaren, 1:31.422
- Kevin Magnussen, McLaren, 1:32.037
