Summary The German team has ruled Formula One for two years, winning 32 of the 38 races
MELBOURNE (AFP) - World champion Lewis Hamilton sped to his 50th career pole position at the Australian Grand Prix on Saturday as Formula One s new-look qualifying format fizzled out in an embarrassing anti-climax.
Hamilton picked up where he left off in the last championship season as he destroyed his rivals, including Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg, to claim pole for Sunday s race in Melbourne.
The three-time champion led almost throughout as he progressively improved his lap time over the three qualifying stages to clock a best time of one minute 23.837 seconds.
"They were some sexy laps," grinned Hamilton afterwards, thanking his team for their work on the car.
He will start inside Rosberg on the race grid with the Ferrari pair Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen unable to match his scorching pace and both starting off the second row.
But the new elimination qualifying format petered out in the final minutes with Vettel, Raikkonen and Rosberg not bothering to improve their times in the final minutes, bringing matters to a premature halt.
Hamilton has registered the fastest times in all three practice sessions and qualifying to be the undeniable favourite for his 44th GP win on Sunday.
The German team has ruled Formula One for two years, winning 32 of the 38 races.
Manor Racing s Pascal Wehrlein was the first man eliminated under the new knock-out qualifying format, which whittles down the field at 90-second intervals.
He was next followed by his Indonesian team-mate Rio Haryanto, who went into qualifying with a three-place grid penalty for his pit lane crash in final practice.
- Early finish -
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Hamilton went quicker, clocking 1:25.351 -- nearly a second faster than last year s pole time -- to clinch his place in the second phase of qualifying as the field began to thin.
Red Bull s Russian driver Daniil Kvyat was the first major casualty of the qualifying shoot-out when he missed out in the first cut.
"Hard to tell (what happened)," Kvyat said. "It doesn t feel great to start the season this way. We have to learn from today."
Denmark s Kevin Magnussen in a Renault was the first casualty of the second part, followed by Jolyon Palmer, his English team-mate and F1 rookie.
McLaren Honda s Jenson Button didn t even try to improve on his lap time and was already out of his McLaren as the clock ticked down, as he was knocked out along with his team-mate and two-time world champion Fernando Alonso.
Red Bull s Australian racer Daniel Ricciardo fought off an imminent threat to stay in contention for Q3.
The last eight for Q3 were Hamilton, Rosberg, Vettel, Carlos Sainz, Ricciardo, Raikkonen, Max Verstappen and Felipe Massa. Hamilton was 0.6sec quicker than Vettel in Q2.
Vettel briefly led the timesheets but Hamilton quickly reasserted command, reeling off a lap half-a-second quicker than the German with 1:24.133 and then scorching to his 1:23.837.
Ricciardo was the first driver knocked out in Q3, followed by Toro Rosso s Carlos Sainz, Felipe Massa in his Williams and Dutch youngster Max Verstappen in the other Toro Rosso, leaving Mercedes and Ferrari to fight it out.
But Ferrari duo Vettel and Raikkonen stayed in the garage along with Rosberg, resigned to the fact that they couldn t better Hamilton and creating the awkward early finish.
