Lewis Hamilton takes Pole Position in Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne

Lewis Hamilton got his bid for the Formula One world championship off to the perfect start after taking pole position for Sunday's Australian Grand Prix. This is Briton's seventh career pole.

The McLaren driver's time of one minute 26.714 seconds was good enough to edge out Robert Kubica's BMW Sauber by 0.155 secs. It was a good day for McLaren, with Heikki Kovalainen taking third, ahead of Massa, with 1m 27.079s.

With Kimi Raikkonen already sidelined after problems in Q2, team mate Felipe Massa had to uphold Ferrari honour alone in Q3, but after recording 1m 27.178s on his first run, he failed to improve on his second. Kubica, meanwhile, was on a blinder that resulted in 1m 26.869s even though he ran wide in Turn Nine. The Pole kept his foot in it and didn’t appear to lose an awful lot of time, and planted his BMW Sauber on the front row for the first time in his career.

Nick Heidfeld’s 1m 27.236s was good enough for fifth in the second BMW Sauber, then came Jarno Trulli’s Toyota on 1m 28.527s, Nico Rosberg’s Williams on 1m 28.687s, David Coulthard’s Red Bull on 1m 29.041s and Timo Glock’s Toyota on 1m 29.593s, while Sebastian Vettel ended an impressive 10th for Toro Rosso.

So wait and watch who will win the 2008 season opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, 16th March.