Melbourne, March 14, 2015 – Lewis Hamilton has claimed pole position for the Australian Grand Prix from his Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg. Hamilton now becomes the most successful driver in the history of qualifying at Melbourne, with four pole positions at the circuit. Since 2005, the race has been won from pole six times, while the lowest placing from which the grand prix has ever been won is seventh.
Conditions started off warm in the Australian afternoon but cooled down during qualifying, with track temperatures dropping due to cloud cover and wind. The Mercedes drivers, plus Williams driver Valtteri Bottas, were the only people to get through Q1 using the medium tyre only. The teams all switched to the soft tyre for Q2, but Mercedes was the only team to complete the session with just one run.
Lewis Hamilton – It’s been a great start to the weekend and, honestly, it doesn’t feel like such a long time since the last race! It’s been a huge effort from all the guys and girls at the factories to have this kind of performance from our car and I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to drive it. I’ve worked hard with the engineers yesterday and today to find a good balance. Then, in the session, I just tried to push hard and put the pieces together. It’s so much fun when it works right, because this is the competition that I live for. And I’m immensely grateful to everybody at Mercedes for the hard work that has gone into it so far. But there is still a lot to do tonight to study for the race tomorrow because it will be a huge challenge to try and fight for the win. We will be working as hard as we can to make sure we have a good race.
Nico Rosberg –Lewis did a good job today, he drove like a champ. I also felt that I had the speed in the car but I didn’t get together the perfect lap. In general I’m happy that the team again gave us a great car. It’s fastest out there this year, too, so many thanks to the factories back home. But tomorrow I still can make it happen because it will be a long race. A lot can still happen and I will put on a great show. My long run pace on Friday was better than Lewis but he did quite a few set-up changes on his car, so there may be more to come from him.
Hamilton’s pole lap, claimed right at the end of Q3, ensures that Mercedes has been fastest in every session of the Australian Grand Prix held so far. Hamilton’s pole time of 1m26.327s was more than three seconds faster than fastest time of the weekend in 2014: 1m29.375s, set in FP3 as qualifying was wet. Hamilton was also fastest in FP3 this morning, using the soft compound tyres.
A two-stop strategy is likely for most drivers tomorrow, which was also the winning strategy last year. With the low wear and degradation seen at Melbourne, a one-stopper might theoretically be possible for some drivers. However, this would probably involve spending too much time on the slower medium tyre, making a two-stopper quicker – especially with a faster car.
