Lewis Hamilton will start on pole after he produced a brilliant lap in Q3 to snatch top spot by a mammoth 0.6 seconds.
It had looked as though Sebastian Vettel would challenge strongly after logging the fastest lap in Q2, but the Mercedes driver appeared to find an extra gear in the final session although he was left vehemently denying afterwards that he had switched the car’s engine into “party mode” to give him the extra speed.
But it got worse for Vettel as he was pipped to second by Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and will start third alongside Max Verstappen on the second row.
Australian Grand Prix 2018 LIVE
LAP 16
Pierre Gasly is smoking badly and limping back to the pits. Looks like that might be a Honda engine failure. Sound familiar? The Frenchman is out for Toro Rosso.
Kimi told to push as much as he can. “Critical moment,” his engineer says. I would think that’s because Hamilton is trying to build a gap that would cover off any undercut.
He responds with the first 1:27.xxx of the race. Great stuff from the Finn.
LAP 12
The top three keep trading purple laps which is very promising in terms of racing and Raikkonen is being told to close up if he can. The gap is 2.5 seconds between first and second.
LAP 10
Oh Max. He’s done a full 360 coming out of Turn One after getting on the power too early and losing the rear. He’s lost more places and is now eighth. Race strategy completely shredded. The Dutch driver might go to a two-stop you would think.
Vettel has gone fastest of anyone now. Less than five seconds separating the top three cars.
LAP 8
Tyre deg becoming an issue. Ferrari appear to be saving theirs while Verstappen is overheating as he desperately tries to get past Magnussen.
Bottas is having more luck. He gets Esteban Ocon into Turn Three and Sergio Perez is next for him.
LAP 6
We have our first casualty. Sergey Sirotkin has pulled over after a brake failure. Not a good week for Williams. Marcus Ericsson has come into the pits pretty slowly too and it looks like Sauber are down to one car.
LAP 5
There was a very early stop for Brendon Hartley by the way. It appears the Kiwi flat-spotted his front left going into Turn One at the start.
Bottas is past Stroll so he’s making progress but not much of it.
Ricciardo has made up a place, getting Hulkenberg into Turn 13. Great overtake from the home favourite.
LAP 3
“We haven’t got time for this,” Verstappen is told. Pretty obvious that means he needs to get past Magnussen or his strategy, which involves going long on the first set of tyres, will not work.
We thought Haas might be quick – and it’s starting to look that way.
Up front, Raikkonen is just 1.3 seconds behind the leader and they are lapping at very similar pace.
LAP 1
Hamilton gets a clean start but has to duck across and cover off Raikkonen, who gets VERY racy into Turn Three but can’t quite make it past.
Magnussen has had a great start and is past Verstappen into fourth.
Great start for one Mercedes – although Bottas who started in 15th has not made any progress at all.
6.10am: They’re off on the formation lap. We are about a minute away.
6.05am: It’s picture day too as all 20 drivers line up together for the first time. Sergey Sirotkin, furthest left as we look, appears not to be interested. Probably thinking about starting a Grand Prix for the very first time along with the only other true rookie Charles Leclerc in the Sauber. Big day for those two.
5.55am: It’s a 10 past the hour start for every race this year, remember, so you’ve got 15 minutes until we get going. Stoffel Vandoorne says it’s pretty windy out there which could make things very tricky. National anthems now.
5.45am: Oh it’s getting really quite warm actually, with some suggestion that could affect the degradation of the tyres. The teams of course have not had much chance to practice in higher track temperatures – thanks to a snowy testing period and rain on Saturday morning – so they will be in the unknown to a certain extent.
However, a one-stop is said to be the preferred strategy with the majority of teams starting on the ultra-softs.
Except the Red Bulls that is, who put on the red-rimmed super-softs for Q2 and will hope to go a bit longer in their first stint and overcut some of their rivals. Intriguing.
5.30am: Christmas is finally here. The new season is 40 minutes away from getting underway under cloudy skies in Melbourne. There MIGHT be some rain later in the day but at the moment it’s warm and pretty sunny in moments when the cloud breaks.
Also like Christmas, you probably haven’t slept much. Well, neither have I, so let’s all try to get through this together. British Summer Time, eh?
