Australian GP: Vettel storms to first pole of 2013 F1 season

Damp conditions for the delayed remainder of qualifying raised hopes of a mixed-up grid, but in the end the pole shootout took place on slicks on a nearly-dry circuit, and it was the champion team that prevailed.

Vettel put himself a second and a half ahead of the field with his 1m27.407s lap when he produced it.

Webber looked poised to beat it until a mistake at the penultimate corner left him 0.420 seconds adrift. Vettel was improving further on his next lap before pitting when it became clear he was unbeatable.

Lewis Hamilton kickstarted Mercedes' season with third on the grid, 0.6s off Vettel's pace.

That was three places higher than team-mate Nico Rosberg, despite the German having been the class of the field when the track was wet. He comfortably topped Q2, having also flown in Saturday's Q1.

The Ferraris split the Mercedes, Felipe Massa outqualifying team-mate Fernando Alonso by 0.003s to grab fourth place.

Row four will be filled by the Lotus pair, Kimi Raikkonen ahead of Romain Grosjean.

Paul di Resta got as high as second for Force India early in Q3 when intermediates were still the best choice. But on slicks he was pushed back to ninth, ahead of McLaren's Jenson Button, the first man to come out on dry tyres in the pole segment.

Several drivers had tried slicks in the final minutes of Q2, but this move proved premature.

While Button immediately returned to intermediates, his team-mate Sergio Perez persisted with slicks and found himself 15th on the grid for his McLaren debut.

Having looked a likely top-five man on intermediates, the slick move left Jean-Eric Vergne only 13th, albeit ahead of inter-shod Toro Rosso team-mate Daniel Ricciardo.

Valtteri Bottas discovered slicks made no difference to Williams's plight in 16th, while Nico Hulkenberg's Sauber and Adrian Sutil's Force India had the right tyres but were still squeezed back to row six.

Pos  Driver                Team                  Time            Gap   
 1.  Sebastian Vettel     Red Bull-Renault       1m27.407s          
 2.  Mark Webber          Red Bull-Renault       1m27.827s  + 0.420s
 3.  Lewis Hamilton       Mercedes               1m28.087s  + 0.680s
 4.  Felipe Massa         Ferrari                1m28.490s  + 1.083s
 5.  Fernando Alonso      Ferrari                1m28.493s  + 1.086s
 6.  Nico Rosberg         Mercedes               1m28.523s  + 1.116s
 7.  Kimi Raikkonen       Lotus-Renault          1m28.738s  + 1.331s
 8.  Romain Grosjean      Lotus Renault          1m29.013s  + 1.606s
 9.  Paul di Resta        Force India-Mercedes   1m29.305s  + 1.898s
10.  Jenson Button        McLaren-Mercedes       1m30.357s  + 2.950s
Q2 cut-off time: 1m37.641s                                   Gap **
11. Nico Hulkenberg       Sauber-Ferrari         1m38.067s  + 1.873s
12. Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes   1m38.134s  + 1.940s
13. Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m38.778s  + 2.584s
14. Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari     1m39.042s  + 2.848s
15. Sergio Perez          McLaren-Mercedes       1m39.900s  + 3.706s
16. Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault       1m40.290s  + 4.096s
Q1 cut-off time: 1m47.330s                                    Gap *
17. Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault       1m47.614s + 4.234s
18. Esteban Gutierrez     Sauber-Ferrari         1m47.776s + 4.396s
19. Jules Bianchi         Marussia-Cosworth      1m48.147s + 4.767s
20. Max Chilton           Marussia-Cosworth      1m48.909s + 5.529s
21. Giedo van der Garde   Caterham-Renault       1m49.519s + 6.139s
22. Charles Pic           Caterham-Renault       1m50.626s + 7.246s

107% time: 1m50.616s

* Gap to quickest in Q1
** Gap to quickest in Q2

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