Red Bull and McLaren dominated the first qualifying session of the year, with the two teams getting the top four pole positions for Sunday's Melbourne race. 2010 title winner Sebastian Vettel started the new F1 season in style, dominating comfortably all three qualifying stages and sealing pole-position with a 1m23.529s lap, 0.78 seconds quicker than the second fastest driver, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.
"We have worked hard to get the RB7 where it is and that's down to the factory. It was a pleasure today but at the moment we have zero points like everyone else. The size of the margin is a surprise. We had a good feeling coming here but we didn't know for sure where we would be," said Vettel.
Red Bull was very close to put both its cars on the front row, but Aussie favorite Mark Webber was denied second place by Hamilton, who managed to post a better time before qualifying ended. Webber had to settle for third place, with Jenson Button right behind him on the second row of the grid.
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso finished, but the Spaniard was almost 1.5 seconds off the leader's pace, while Felipe Massa only posted the eighth best time, a sign that the Prancing Horse doesn't yet have the speed to challenge the Red Bulls. The biggest surprise of the day however was Vitaly Petrov qualifying its Renault in sixth place, with his teammate Nick Heidfeld taking 18th place. Under these circumstances, one can't help but wonder where would the injured Kubica have put the Renault on the starting grid.
Mercedes GP's best-placed driver was Nico Rosberg, in seventh place, while Michael Schumacher only managed 11th place, missing the final round. Judging by the pace shown in qualifying, Mercedes doesn't seem to have improved much over the last season.
By Dan Mihalascu
Source: Grandprix
2011 Australian GP - Saturday - Qualifying Times
