RECAP: Qualifying Australian Grand Prix 2018 - Hamilton Dominates!

The first qualifying session of the year is in the books! Hamilton asserts his dominance by grabbing pole position by some distance, and both Ferrari's complete the top three, although surprisingly, Kimi Raikkonen beat his teammate Sebastian Vettel to second place.

The morning had a lively start - as soon as the lights turned green, a lot of cars immediately came out on the track. Kimi Raikkonen set the pace early with a 1:23.096. Lewis Hamilton really seemed to need to beat that time, as the Brit had three runs in Q1 and eventually logged a 1:22.824, the fastest lap of the first session. The top six didn't come out of the pits in the last five minutes.

At the other side of the spectrum, there was a real battle going on in those final minutes. Lance Stroll managed to escape to Q2, but his rookie teammate Sergey Sirotkin couldn't climb higher than nineteenth in his Williams. Both Toro Rosso's and both Sauber's completed the five who couldn't make it past the first session.

It was Max Verstappen who went out early in the second round on his used supersofts and set a 1:22.830, but the Dutchman was quickly out-done by both Ferrari and Mercedes, who had gone out on fresh sets of the new hypersoft compound.

Verstappen went in for a fresh set of tyres (still supersofts instead of hypersofts) and quickly improved by four-tenths of a second. Sebastian Vettel eventually came out quickest in the second session as time ran out; the German posted a 1:21.944

There was a lot of speculation if McLaren could make it into Q3, and for now, they couldn't. Fernando Alonso just missed out on the last session as he finished eleventh, followed by his teammate Stoffel Vandoorne in twelveth. Both Force India's, who were regulars in Q3 last season, also couldn't make it out of Q2, as Perez and Ocon finished thirteenth and fifteenth respectively. Lance Stroll finished fourteenth, five places above his teammate.

Both Mercedes cars emerged from the pitlane early in Q3, which was followed by a big bang. Valtteri Bottas caught too much of the curbstone, causing him to lose control of his W09 and fly into the wall. Needless to say, that was the end of the session for the Finn, and it remains a question whether he'll need an engine replacement for tomorrow's race.

Lewis Hamilton set the tone early in Q3 with a 1:22.051, but Red Bull showed that they can hang with the Germans, as Max Verstappen posted a 1:22.112, only marginally behind the reigning world champion.

Vettel crept close to Hamilton too, which caused Hamilton to make a statement. He obliterated his previous best time by almost a full second with a 1:21.051, showing the opposition who's boss. Kimi Raikkonen surprisingly ended second, a full six-tenths of a second behind Hamilton (1:21.828) followed by Vettel in third (1:21.838).

Will Hamilton cruise to victory tomorrow, or will we have an old-fashioned scrap for first? We can't wait for tomorrow's race!

We'll be live-blogging the whole race, right here on GPblog.com!