Hamilton takes pole in record pace

Something that surprised Lewis Hamilton after he posted the fastest lap ever at the Albert Park circuit and equaled Ayrton Senna’s record of six pole positions at the Australian Grand Prix was that his time wasn’t even quicker.

New technical and tire regulations for the 2017 season were designed to make the F1 cars faster and maybe reduce Mercedes’ dominance. Hamilton maintained Mercedes’ status quo at the front of the grid, although Ferrari is showing signs of competing for the top of the podium. Sebastian Vettel split the Mercedes drivers with the second-fastest time in qualifying, and Kimi Raikkonen was fourth.

The times kept improving during the three practice sessions and the Mercedes driver’s last flying lap in qualifying Saturday was 1 minute, 22.188 seconds. It gave his 62nd pole position overall in F1, behind only Michael Schumacher (68) and Senna (65), and lowered the lap record Vettel set in the third practice session.

Hamilton went more than a second under last year’s qualifying time, but said “we thought it would be more than that.”

“Maybe it’s the track — It’s cool today. I’m sure during the year it’s going to ramp up much quicker.”

Vettel, a four-time world champion, said Hamilton’s qualifying lap was only just out of his reach, but he was looking forward to racing the new, faster cars in GP conditions.

“People are fired up,” Vettel said. “We’re motivated for tomorrow.

“We have a good car and we’re working well as a team. Nice to see that things are working. We had a mixed day yesterday, but confidence in the car was there from testing.”