MELBOURNE, Australia — Mercedes dominated qualifying for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix with four-time world champion Lewis Hamilton blasting to his 84th Formula One pole position Saturday at Albert Park.
Hamilton clocked the lap record of Albert Park with a 1 minute and 20.486 seconds to snatch the top spot from teammate Valtteri Bottas and record his sixth consecutive pole at the circuit, and a record-equaling eighth at the Australian Grand Prix.
“I feel so fortunate to be in the position I’m in today,” Hamilton said. “We had no idea that we’d have this gap to the others – we thought we were behind, we thought it was going to be a push, so we gave it absolutely everything and more to arrive here with the best possible package and delivery.
“Valtteri and I have been pushing the car to its absolute limits. We haven’t massively changed the car; it’s almost the same set-up we had in Barcelona, so this gap was really surprising to see. This is the first time we’ve unleashed the full potential of the car and I’m so happy to have a car that I can fight with. This is a really great start to the new season and it puts us in a good position for the fight tomorrow.”
Bottas was more than seven-tenths of a second ahead of No. 3 qualifier Sebastian Vettel, who drove the lead Ferrari.
Max Verstappen was fourth for Red Bull Racing with Charles Leclerc fifth in the second Ferrari.
Romain Grosjean was an impressive sixth for Haas F1 with his teammate Kevin Magnussen one spot back in seventh.