At the end of qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, the first race of the season, the bad news is that, just like last year, the World Championship seems to be a private affair between the two Mercedes drivers. The good news, however, is that Ferrari has responded present, and tomorrow they will start from the second row with Vettel and third with Raikkonen.
Pole position went to Lewis Hamilton (the 39th of his career), reigning world champion and absolute ruler of qualifying, who finished with a time of 1.26.327, a good six tenths better than his teammate Nico Rosberg (1.26.921 .XNUMX), never really dangerous for the teammate. It will be the two of them who fight for victory, with the Englishman clearly favored.
Felipe Massa (1.27.718) will start in the second row with the third time, who only managed to overtake Sebastian Vettel in the last attempt, fourth and outwitted by just 39 thousandths (1.27.757). Rather, the problem is that the gap from Hamilton is abysmal, one second and four tenths, a sign that the gap with Mercedes is considerable again this year and that the risk is that of witnessing a monologue from the Silver Arrows: "We can being very happy, both cars in the top five is a great result for us – commented Vettel -. We spent a weekend in which everything went smoothly, there's still a lot to work on, the gap from Mercedes is still big but we can be happy and tomorrow we can fight for the podium”.
The other Ferrari, Raikkonen's, will start from the third row with the fifth fastest time, just 33s behind his teammate (1.27.790), demonstrating how the work done is already paying off: "If we look where we were last year and where we are now, we see that a great job was done – said the Finn -, today third place was possible, but I made a big mistake during my last qualifying lap. I'm a little disappointed, there were all the conditions for being third”. Alongside him will be the second Williams of Bottas, who messed up in the last attempt and finished with the sixth fastest time.
The surprise of the day was the young Spanish rookie Carlos Sainz Jr, who at the wheel of Toro Rosso closed the first qualifying of his career with the eighth fastest time, immediately behind Ricciardo's Red Bull, which appeared not very effective on the flying lap.
The big disappointment was, as could be expected after a disastrous pre-season, McLaren, out in Q1 with both cars: Button and Magnussen (replacement for Alonso, who should return to Malaysia) finished second to last and last respectively place. And poor Fernando, seeing how "his" Ferrari fared, will already be rethinking that maybe it wasn't so bad in red.
