Lewis Hamilton on pole as Mercedes lock out front row: 2015 Australian Grand Prix

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton takes pole position at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix – with Nico Rosberg in second spot – as Mercedes F1 domination continues.

It’s a new F1 season, but nothing’s changed – Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg still seem to have such an advantage over the rest of the field that the only fight in qualifying for the 2015 Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne was for third spot on down.

Lewis Hamilton beat Nico Rosberg to pole by more than half a second, and third place Felipe Massa in the Williams was 1.39 seconds adrift of Hamilton. It was a convincing Mercedes outing.

Williams managed to pip Ferrari to the third spot, but only just, with Sebastian Vettel taking fourth and Kimmi Raikkonen fifth, followed by the second Williams of Valtteri Bottas.

Last year’s non-Mercedes golden boy – Daniel Ricciardo – could only manage seventh spot in his Red Bull (and team mate Daniil Kvyat only 13th), so it doesn’t look like Renault has delivered much in the way of engine improvements over the winter.

The tail-end of the top ten is completed by Carlos Sainz in the Torro Rosso in eighth and the Lotus drivers – Grosjean and Maldonado – in ninth and tenth.

The qualify result also means Mercedes powered 60 per cent of the top ten qualifiers.

That leaves the question of what happened to McLaren and their much vaunted new partnership with Honda? It didn’t work.

It is only the first race of the new F1 season, but McLaren clearly hasn’t got their car working with Honda power properly, and the best they could manage was 17th place for Jenson Button, with Fernando Alonso’s stand-in – Kevin Magnussen – in 18th spot. Only the Marussias were slower.

Which means the 2015 Australia Grand Prix could see the McLarens deliver their worst ever result.