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Hamilton, Button Lead McLaren 1-2 Grid Positions In Australia

MELBOURNE, Australia- Following the previous season, when Lewis Hamilton finished a disappointing fifth in the world driver’s championship, the Briton made up for it Saturday afternoon by taking a 1:24:922 fastest lap time to lead a McLaren 1-2 in qualifying for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Australia at Albert Park.

Teammate Jenson Button will join Hamilton along row one, while Lotus driver Romain Grosjean, who his driving his first grand prix race in over a year, took an impressive third.

“I’m massively proud of my team.” Said Hamilton. “We’ve been working incredibly hard throughout the winter: we’ve never given up, and everyone has just kept pushing and pushing. We’ve had some tough years, but everyone in this team wants to succeed: to be the best. I’m proud that I was able to do the job for them today. My first lap in Q3 felt pretty special – at the end of it, I felt it’d be surprising if anyone could push ahead of that. I tried even harder on my final run, but braked a little too late into the first corner and spoiled the lap. After that, I was just hoping that nobody would go any quicker. I just love qualifying, especially when you get the lap just right; when it all flows, the tyres work and you hit the sweet-spot everywhere. It’s like heaven. Today we showed that we not only have the most beautiful car in Formula 1, but also the fastest! Of course, there’s still a long way to go tomorrow – looking after the tyres will be key – but we’re in the best possible position to have a strong race.”

Right from the start, the opening session produced some big surprises. One of them was Japanese standout Kamui Kobyaschi, who took his Sauber to the fastest time of the session, with a 1:26:182. Rookie French man Jean-Eric Vergne joined the upset, by taking second, while fellow countryman Grosjean finished in third. The normal placers were well down on the list as Fernando Alonso, defending world champion Sebastian Vettel finished in seventh and eighth, respectively, while Hamilton, Button and home hero Mark Webber qualified for the next session, but finished well down the order. But the big stunner from the first session was Kimi Raikkonen, back in formula One for the first time in two years, failed to qualify and will start the race from 18 th position.

“Today didn’t go quite as planned.” Stated the Finn. “There’s no issue with the car; I made a mistake and there was a communication issue so the timing wasn’t right to get another lap. It cost us a good qualifying position but that’s how it goes sometimes. We should have easily been in Q2. It’s not the best start but we’ll try to put it right in the race. There’s plenty of speed in the car. The steering was fine. It’s not perfect for exactly what I want but it doesn’t affect my driving. For sure we can do better than 18th tomorrow so we’ll have to see what happens.”

In addition, both HRT entrees of Narain Karthekeyen and Pedro De La Rosa, failed the 107 percent qualifying time and might have to miss the race.

The following 15 minutes were not very good for Ferrari, who for the first time since 2009 will not have any of their cars in the top four on the grid. With 8:22 left in the session, Alonso spun at the exit of turn one, and ended up stuck in the sand. But despite his engine running, the Spaniard demanded that he could still continue. But track officials were not permitted to touch his car, and Alonso had to retire to finish 11 th on the day.

“It went like this:” as Alonso technically explained it. “I got a bit on the grass under braking, the car took off on its own and I found myself in the gravel. I had managed to keep the engine running and was hoping the marshals would be able to push me back on track. I had done my time on used Softs: maybe with a new set I could have made it through to Q3, but I would not have been able to fight for the front rows. Today, we lacked performance, especially because we did not have enough aerodynamic downforce and we are still lacking in top speed. Tomorrow we will be racing defensively and will try and do what we can, hopefully making the most of having four sets of new tyres. Let’s hope for a good start in order to catch those who are a few rows ahead of us and then fight with them to the end. Here, at the end of qualifying last year, we were 1″4 off the pace, while today, in Q2 it was 1″, therefore hypothetically one could say we are more competitive than we were back then. Sure, there are other teams that have made progress, but I think we have plenty of room for improvement. In Malaysia, we will have the same car, therefore the situation won’t change much. We will just have to see how it will adapt to the track characteristics there. It’s true our target at the start of the year was to fight for the win right from the beginning and we have not managed that, but this will be a long season and all we can do is work on improving performance There’s no point getting angry as it does not serve any purpose.”

Teammate Felipe Massa was worse off as the Brazilian could not do any better. And considering his car was fully running at the end of the session, he finished in 16 th . But for Mercedes, it was their session, as Nico Rosberg took top honors with his best time of 1:25:469, while Michael Schumacher finished an impressive second.

But the day went to Hamilton, as he and Button will start on the front row for the first time in years. Behind Grosjean was Schumacher in fourth, while a disappointed Red Bull team placed Webber and Vettel in fifth and sixth, respectively. Rosberg took seventh, while Pastor Maldonado, Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Riccardo took their first top ten grid finishes of their career.

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