Hamilton on pole ahead of Ricciardo in Melbourne

Qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix offered its share of surprises, notably the arrival of rain which further reshuffled the cards. Lewis Hamilton proved that Mercedes was also effective in the rain, taking pole with a time of 1'44"231. The 2008 world champion equals Nigel Mansell's record with a 32nd pole and offers the 100th to the engine manufacturer Mercedes (the record being 213 for Renault). The first surprise comes from Daniel Ricciardo who has the luxury of slotting into the front row between the two Mercedes after having attempted the gamble of completing his timed lap on intermediate tires. The Australian was ahead of Nico Rosberg's W05 by half a tenth while Sebastian Vettel was eliminated in Q2!

Red Bull is not the only team to offer surprising results. Kevin Magnussen completes the second row for his first Grand Prix with McLaren while his teammate Jenson Button, much more experienced and efficient in the rain, failed at the gates of Q3! Fernando Alonso place first Ferrari in fifth place while Kimi Räikkönen ranked behind Jenson Button after hitting the wall following a spin. Jean-Éric Vergne achieves his best performance in qualifying by taking sixth place ahead of Force India from Nico Hulkenberg, while Daniil Kvyat made a very promising debut with Toro Rosso finishing in eighth position. THE Williams by Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas complete the top ten, but the Finn will have to drop five places on the grid following a gearbox change.

Valtteri Bottas will start behind Adrian Sutil and the Caterham Kamui Kobayashi who thus obtained a 14th place for Tony Fernandes' team. Sergio Pérez, however, will not benefit from this penalty and will only start from 16th place ahead of the Marussias of Max Chilton and Jules Bianchi. Esteban Gutiérrez is 19th, but the Mexican also received a five-place penalty for a gearbox change. Lotus F1 Team hits bottom with its two cars. Romain Grosjean set the last time of Q1 while Pastor Maldonado could not even set a single timed lap.

The Australian Grand Prix will be contested from 7 a.m. French time and can be followed live on AUTOhebdo.fr. Photos from the weekend can be found on this link.