Lewis Hamilton took a record-equalling 6th pole position for the 2017 F1 Australian Grand Prix. Sebastien Vettel put Ferrari on the front row by splitting the Mercedes pairing, suggesting the Italian team’s pre-season form may be real.
Giovinazzi and Grosjean star in qualifying
Antonio Giovinazzi and Romain Grosjean were the surprise of the session. Giovinazzi narrowly missed out on getting in to Q2 on his F1 debut. Particularly impressive given that he was only called up to replace injured Pascal Werhlein for FP3.
Grosjean got his Haas in to the top 10 finishing 6th whilst team mate Kevin Magnussen could not make it out of Q1. Toro Rosso rounded out the top 10 but sister team Red Bull Racing faced a challenging qualifying. Daniel Ricciardo crashed in Q3 and Max Verstappen struggled to maximise performance falling behind Mercedes and Ferrari. Ricciardo may yet suffer a grid penalty as a result of his accident.
F1 rookies face an uphill battle
Stoffel Vandoorne, Lance Stroll and Jolyon Palmer had a torrid qualifying session. Technical issues hampered both Vandoorne and Palmer.
| 1 | Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:22.188 | U |
| 2 | Vettel | Ferrari | +0.268 | U |
| 3 | Bottas | Mercedes | +0.293 | U |
| 4 | Raikkonen | Ferrari | +0.845 | U |
| 5 | Verstappen | Red Bull Racing | +1.297 | U |
| 6 | Grosjean | Haas | +1.886 | U |
| 7 | Massa | Williams | +2.255 | U |
| 8 | Sainz | Toro Rosso | +2.299 | U |
| 9 | Kvyatt | Toro Rosso | +2.324 | U |
| 10 | Ricciardo | Red Bull Racing | U | |
| 11 | Perez | Force India | 1:25.081 | U |
| 12 | Hulkenberg | Renault | 1:25.091 | U |
| 13 | Alonso | McLaren | 1:25.425 | U |
| 14 | Ocon | Force India | 1:25.568 | U |
| 15 | Ericsson | Sauber | U | |
| 16 | Giovinazzi | Sauber | 1:26.419 | U |
| 17 | Magnussen | Haas | 1:26.847 | U |
| 18 | Vandoorne | McLaren | 1:26.858 | U |
| 19 | Stroll | Williams | 1:27.143 | U |
| 20 | Palmer | Renault | 1:28.244 | U |
MotorSportNotes 