Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Albert Park, 2018

2018 Australian Grand Prix grid

2018 Australian Grand Prix

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Row 11. Lewis Hamilton 1’21.164
Mercedes
2. Kimi Raikkonen 1’21.828
Ferrari
Row 23. Sebastian Vettel 1’21.838
Ferrari
4. Max Verstappen 1’21.879
Red Bull
Row 35. Kevin Magnussen 1’23.187
Haas
6. Romain Grosjean 1’23.339
Haas
Row 47. Nico Hulkenberg 1’23.532
Renault
8. Daniel Ricciardo* 1’22.152
Red Bull
Row 59. Carlos Sainz Jnr 1’23.577
Renault
10. Fernando Alonso 1’23.692
McLaren
Row 611. Stoffel Vandoorne 1’23.853
McLaren
12. Sergio Perez 1’24.005
Force India
Row 713. Lance Stroll 1’24.230
Williams
14. Esteban Ocon 1’24.786
Force India
Row 815. Valtteri Bottas** No time
Mercedes
16. Brendon Hartley 1’24.532
Toro Rosso
Row 917. Marcus Ericsson 1’24.556
Sauber
18. Charles Leclerc 1’24.636
Sauber
Row 1019. Sergey Sirotkin 1’24.922
Williams
20. Pierre Gasly 1’25.295
Toro Rosso

*Three-place grid penalty for failing to slow sufficiently for red flags
**Five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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30 comments on “2018 Australian Grand Prix grid”

  1. Can we NOW rip on mclaren?

    1. @mrboerns rip them for what? Between them, Renault, and Haas, they’re all very close. Podium is still very far yes, but fighting for 4th best team is still very realistic goal so far.

    2. Definitely yes. RIP them.
      Have you noticed they used to benchmark to the #1 and #2 teams on the grid. Now they don’t even take that in their mouths anymore.
      It’s the new Williams…

    3. Is ripping on McLaren your only joy in regards to Formula 1?

  2. Wow, well, Q3 for one moment looked like this was going to be one amazing season. Hamilton smashed that illusion. What an awe-insipiring performance. Yeay Kimi! Shame about Verstappen going wide, that was a front row start right there. Still comfortably quicker than Ric though ;-) The Red Bull and the Ferrari are clearly good, but ultimately, the Mercedes in Hamilton’s hands still the car to beat (here). Will be curious to see what happens in hotter conditions.

  3. Absolutely insane lap by Lewis. Kimi will sleep well tonight too..

    1. I think Lewis is the only one to sleep well tonight.

    2. It’s a shame Bottas never set a time in Q3, we never saw how much of Hamilton’s pole lap was ‘party mode’, or wether it was a simply stunning lap on Lewis’ behalf

  4. That last Hamilton lap are unbelievable. When I first saw he ran through turn 1 and 2 I already amazed by how fast that is, and then the sector 1 timing confirmed it as -.49s, then sector 2 continued to improve where Mercedes was weak there all weekend. Sector 3 just formalities by then but he still improved it. Mega lap.

  5. Whoever thought the new font was a good idea needs there head checking because it is simply awful especially on smaller tv screens where it becomes completely unreadable. They should revert back to the previous font as it was clear and easy read even on smaller screens.

    Also is it just me or do these new graphics provide us with a lot less information? I do not recall seeing speed trap figures, The telemetry data & the only thing differentiating tyre compounds is the color while last year they were listed as S/SS etc..
    And when they have more than 1 timing graphic at the bottom we cannot see the split times for 2 of them, just the time clock of the lap there on which is useless. Also we don’t seem to see the lap times displayed very much.

    The whole thing seems very style over substance, Very unreadable style at that…… Really not very good at all.

    1. Yeah the font doesn’t work for the more intricate bits of information. Overall I thought the graphics were good and more representative of competition between drivers. Speed traps are cool but don’t really tell us much.

    2. Style over substance. I completely agree.

      Too small to read. Agree there also.

  6. What a sandbag by Mercedes! 6 tenths.. even if 3 tenths Hamilton + 3 tenths Mercedes party mode, seems like a huge mountain for others to climb.

  7. Haas smashed it! I bet they’re thrilled with that. Early days but I bet Force India are nervous.

    1. So totally good by KMAG and Haas.
      Thats admireable work by a still new team.

  8. Not the right forum to discuss this but was disappointed with the graphics. Until they showed the close-ups of the cars, had absolutely no idea on what tyres the times were being set. Qualifying today–so its easy to guess that they were on ultras, its going to be extremely difficult tomorrow and the rest f the season if they do not show the tyres they are on.
    They keep showing the logos of the team they drive for which is really unnecessary. Tyre information is far more important than the team name. Race commentary is gonna be a major source of info this year.
    Last year, we had a G-Force map, speed traps info, tyre strategy for the races, historical performance/ no of poles taken earlier (on that particular circuit), race wins, etc.
    As for the font and its size, the lesser said, the better.
    Hope Liberty get their act together very soon.

  9. @RogerAyles @andrewtanner yeah graphics feel dumbed down to me with lots of stuff we used to get missing, not a fan of this at all!

    and this font is indeed absolutely terrible, really struggling to read it even on a larger screen (Not just on tv graphics either, the f1 website/app is unusable for me now thanks to this horrible font)! really silly decision to change the font which was previously fine. like the logo it is all change for changes sake imo!

  10. Wow, the season kinda looks like a disaster already! If it stays like this next 2-3 races, it’s completely OVER! I just hope VET had a poor lap and there was another 0.2-0.3sec left in the car. I’m hoping this more because RAI is in front… and it’s not natural. If this is the true speed of the cars, to me it looks like RBR caught Ferrari, but Mercedes gained on both another 0.25sec. Thing is, will the regs be changed for next year to create a “restart”, like they did for 2005?

    Impressive stuff from Haas. Poor Alonso, must be so hard for him to see that his 2018 McLaren is slower than 2017 Ferrari. Yeah, he would have improved his time had he made it to Q3, but no chance he would have improved by +1.2sec to match VET’s last year time. I guess he missed the opportunity to sign Haas or Renault too…

  11. I don’t get the Haas hype. They didn’t get any closer to the front compared to last year. And with mediocre drivers and their history of developing the car, they will quickly find themselves fighting for Q2 again.

    Talking about midfield teams, I was really hoping Renault would be closer to the front. They will probably settle for 4th best team, but under normal circumstances Nico will have a hard time to finally get that podium.

    1. Aha, Haas has medicore drivers? I thought this quali proved both Grosjean and Magnussen as star F1 drivers in a medicore car. Both got absolutely maximum result in the Haas.

      1. There are 10-12 drivers in F1 that I rate higher, so yeah, thats what I call mediocre.

        1. Well, we don’t agree with you.
          And if you don’t get the hype. They beat Renault works team and McLaren much-bigger-budget team and last years best-of-rest force india. That’s solid work.
          You may not know it, but the ressorces and best-right-people the top-3 have makes them an unreachable league of it’s own so the position deserves hype.

          1. I guess its a matter of definition then. Remember Sauber 2012? That’s hype-worthy to me.

    2. Yeah, why be impressed by a private team with a small budget beating McLaren, Renault, Williams, Force India, Toro Rosso and Sauber – I mean, seriously, if those guys with their superior everything had just tried today it would clearly be no match, but I guess they couldn’t be bothered.

  12. Surprised by a lot of performances today… Raikkonen ahead of Vettel, Magnussen ahead of Grosjean, Perez ahead of Ocon, Hartley ahead of Gasly, Ericsson ahead of Leclerc. Could be an interesting season in terms of team mate performances.

    1. Vettel made an error in his last lap, magnussen suprised me because looked superior the whole weekend, Perez is a good qualifier ( a bit better than Ocon,in my opinion), Gasly made a big errror, and you cant be suprised about leclerc being behind erricson, i thought he did good.

  13. Dont think anyone could have done anything about Lewis’ lap today, it was unbelievable.

    I think the race will be a lot closer, prior to the last lap from Hamilton (suspect the Magic hadn’t been turned on), things were very close.

    The battle from 7th onwards looks to be even tighter.

    It should make for a good race, especially if there’s rain.

  14. I expect Bottas and Ricciardo to fight through the guys in front but they’ll probably have a tougher time with Magnussen than Grosjean and the Renaults. All Magnussen needs is consistency because he is very fast and talented and age is on his side too. I expect Haas will be the surprise this year and may hold off McLaren and Force India especially if their drivers click.

  15. Williams and their quality drivers chosen based on their skill…

Comments are closed.