Qualifying at the 2011 Australian Grand Prix was completely dominated by Sebastian Vettel almost eight tenths of a second fast than his nearest rival Lewis Hamilton. An absolute mile in F1 terms.
While Red Bulls performance was not unexpected although the final margin once Vettel let loose no doubt surprised most of his competitors, it was McLarens performance so far throughout the weekend which has been the most unexpected. Unusually off the pace during Preseason testing The McLaren engineers work around the clock to come up with major revisions in time for the Australian Grand Prix massively improving the performance of this seasons car.
Australian Grand Prix Qualifying Grid Position
| Grid Position | Driver/Team | Grid Position | Driver/Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vettel/Red Bull Racing | 2 | Hamilton/McLaren |
| 3 | Webber/Red Bull Racing | 4 | Button/McLaren |
| 5 | Alonso/Ferrari | 6 | Petrov/Lotus Racing Gp |
| 7 | Rosberg/Mercedes GP | 8 | Massa/Ferrari |
| 9 | Kobayashi/Sauber F1 | 10 | Buemi/Toro Rosso |
| 11 | Schumacher/Mercedes GP | 12 | Alguersuari/Toro Rosso |
| 13 | Perez/Sauber F1 | 14 | Di Resta/Force India |
| 15 | Maldonado/Williams | 16 | Sutil/Force India |
| 17 | Barrichello/Williams | 18 | Heidfeld/Lotus Renult GP |
| 19 | Kovalainen/Team Lotus | 20 | Trulli/Team Lotus |
| 21 | Glock/Marussia Virgin Racing | 22 | D'Ambrosia/Marussia Virgin Racing |
| 23 (Note 1) | Liuzzi/ HRT F1 Team | 24 (Note 1) | Karthikeyan/HRT F1 Team |
Note 1: Qualifying Time outside the 107% criteria. May not take part in Grand Prix subject to FIA decision
At the other end of the field the three new teams Team Lotus, Marussia Virgin Racing and HRT F1 Racing Team continue to be massively off the pace with HRT suffering the ultimate ignominy being unable to set a time below the 107% target and may well not get to compete in the first Grand Prix of the season. Given the amount of effort the team put out to get both cars on track for qualifying that must be a bitter pill indeed.
