50th pole for Hamilton in a dull qualifying

Lewis Hamilton will be on pole tomorrow in Albert Park for the first Grand Prix of the 2016 season. With a very disappointing new qualifying format which provided very little action and excitement on track, Rosberg was 2^nd for Mercedes and Vettel 3^rd on his Ferrari.

All drivers came out on track right at the beginning of Q1. The new qualifying format caught some teams by surprise, since both Manor stayed in the box and the Haas drivers and Nasr didn’t go on track with enough time to set a time before the 90s countdown. Wehrlein was the first one out, followed by Haryanto, Gutiérrez, Grosjean, Nasr and Ericsson. Palmer avoided elimination in his last lap on P14, ahead of his teammate Magnussen.

The Renault drivers weren’t as lucky in Q2 and Magnussen and Palmer were the first two drivers out, followed by Button and Alonso. The first surprise came with Bottas, who was eliminated in 11^th. After that, both Force India gave up on the so far unexciting new qualifying format and Hülkenberg and Pérez were P10 and P9.

The failure of the new qualifying system reached its peak on Q3. Ricciardo was the first one eliminated and after that came Sainz, Massa, Verstappen, Räikkönen and Vettel, none of them fighting for their position on track. Only Rosberg, who was 5^th on his first attempt, improved his time and moved up to 2^nd. There was no fight for the pole and barely any for eliminations.

Results: