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Lewis Hamilton claimed the first pole position of Formula 1’s new elimination-style qualifying and will start ahead of his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg for the opening race of the 2016 season.

Hamilton seized the 50th pole of his F1 career and the world champion was quickest on both of his flying laps in the final part of the session at the Australian Grand Prix.

The British driver’s best effort of 1m23.837s was 0.360s quicker than Rosberg, who could not claim a seventh pole in a row and the German driver made a number of errors throughout qualifying.

The new qualifying system did not build to a crescendo, as Mercedes was the only team to complete two runs in Q3 and Hamilton’s pole was confirmed four minutes before the final chequered flag came out.

Speaking after the session, Hamilton said: “First I really have to take my hat off to this team [for] what they’ve done to raise the bar once more in our third year to be fighting [above] the rest. It truly inspires me, it motivates me and I enjoyed driving the car in qualifying [and] we got the set-up just right.

“They were some sexy laps. It felt so good – just flowing and no real mistakes. That’s really all you can hope for as a driver [to] always improve and that’s what we did today. [I’m] really happy.”

Rosberg said: “The last lap in Q3 was good, Lewis just did a better job, that’s it. It’s impressive to see how the team [for] the third year running, although it is very early days so lets be careful here this weekend, we seem to be the quickest out there by a good margin.

“It’s amazing to see that because the risk when you’re dominating is always that you start to become complacent and that’s always a big risk. Everybody has experienced that and it seems that we’re able to push through and that’s really awesome.

“Of course [I’m] not happy with second place [but there’s] still a lot of opportunities tomorrow starting from second.”

Sebastian Vettel finished third for Ferrari, just ahead of his teammate Kimi Raikkonen. The Scuderia’s drivers had split the Mercedes pair after the first run in Q3 but they did not return to the circuit and were both pushed down one spot when Rosberg improved his time.

Max Verstappen finished fifth for Toro Rosso after his solitary flying lap in Q3, which will be his best ever F1 starting position, with Felipe Massa sixth for Williams, just ahead of Carlos Sainz.

Daniel Ricciardo was the first driver to lose out in Q3 and the home favourite will start eighth for tomorrow’s race.

Sergio Perez finished ninth and was the last driver to be knocked out of Q2, just after his Force India teammate Nico Hulkenberg.

Neither Force India driver attempted to improve their times and the second part of qualifying ended without a car on the track.

Before that, Valtteri Bottas was eliminated in 11th as he could not improve his time and ran wide at the final corner, the very spot where the Williams driver sustained the injury to his back that forced him to miss the 2015 race in Australian.

Fernando Alonso ended up 12th as the double world champion was out of his car when Sainz improved during the fourth elimination of Q2 and knocked the McLaren driver out of qualifying.

Jenson Button will start 13th in the second McLaren as the British driver did not return to the track to improve his time and became the third driver to be knocked out in Q2. The 2009 world champion later stated he did not have enough tyres left to go quicker.

Jolyon Palmer ended up 14th on his F1 qualifying debut; one place in front of his Renault teammate Kevin Magnussen, who will start in 15th place after the Danish driver was the first casualty of the second segment of the session.

Marcus Ericsson finished 16th and was the last driver to be knocked out in Q1 after Palmer improved on the final lap in the opening part of qualifying.

Felipe Nasr will start 17th in the second Sauber. The Brazilian driver was sent out within the 90-second elimination bracket but would not have had enough time to put a better lap in and so he returned to the pits.

Daniil Kvyat was the most high-profile driver to lose out in Q1 as the Russian driver was not sent out in time by Red Bull and he was in the pits when the fifth elimination of that segment occurred.

Romain Grosjean, who had earlier refused to let Hamilton through on the first out lap of Q1, will start 19th for Haas F1 and his teammate Esteban Gutierrez ended up 20th on his return to F1 with the American squad.

Pascal Wehrlein will start last after the German became the first driver eliminated in Q1, one spot behind his Manor teammate Rio Haryanto. The team did not send its drivers back out to defend their positions, and they were both in the pits when the first two eliminations took place.

Qualifying results:

Pos
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m23.837s
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m24.197s (Q3 gap) +0.360s
3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m24.675s (Q3 gap) +0.838s
4 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m25.033s (Q3 gap) +1.196s
5 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1m25.434s (Q3 gap) +1.597s
6 Felipe Massa Williams 1m25.458s (Q3 gap) +1.621s
7 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1m25.582s (Q3 gap) +1.745s
8 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1m25.589s (Q3 gap) +1.752s
9 Sergio Perez Force India 1m25.753s
10 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1m25.865s
11 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1m25.961s
12 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1m26.125s
13 Jenson Button McLaren 1m26.304s
14 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1m27.601s
15 Kevin Magnussen Renault 1m27.742s
16 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1m27.435s
17 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1m27.958s
18 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1m28.006s
19 Romain Grosjean Haas 1m28.322s
20 Esteban Gutierrez Haas 1m29.606s
21 Pascal Wehrlein Manor 1m29.642s
22 Rio Haryanto Manor 1m29.627s

Rosberg, who won the final three races of 2015, is aiming to join Hamilton, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher as the only drivers to take seven consecutive pole positions.

The German’s current qualifying streak stretches back to the Japanese Grand Prix in October last year.

Speaking ahead of the race in Melbourne, Rosberg explained that he was raring to get racing again and hopes to extend his victory streak into 2016

He said: “I’ve had a great winter and done a few things differently for this year. I’ve never felt more ready to go. It’s going to be a great battle.

“I’m really hoping to bring back a couple of wins from the first flyaways to reward everyone at the factories for their hard work.

Hamilton won the Australian event in 2015 and if he leads the Grand Prix for one lap this year the Briton will equal Senna’s tally of 86 races led, which is second only to Schumacher’s 142.

The world champion is also still one pole position short of Senna’s total of 50, a mark he has been stuck on ever since last year’s Italian Grand Prix due to Sebastian Vettel’s pole in Singapore and Rosberg’s subsequent domination in the final six qualifying sessions of 2015.

But Hamilton believes he still has more to give in Formula 1 as he seeks a third successive world title and the 31-year-old explained that he would need to make another step up to overcome Rosberg’s positive end to last season and the potential threat from Ferrari in 2016.

He said: “I know there’s still more to come from me – I think I’ve shown that in the past two years. There certainly needs to be some extra in my tank, as the competition will be stronger than ever this year.”

Mercedes impressive mileage in testing – 3743 miles in total – stood out above the rest of the grid, and the team’s executive director (technical), Paddy Lowe, described how the W07 had completed more pre-season laps than its predecessor despite the lower number of test days in 2016.

He said: “We saw an unprecedented level of reliability during pre-season testing, almost the same mileage in eight days as we achieved across twelve days last year, demonstrating clear progress in our ability to prepare for a new season.

“However, it’s still early days, and there are no Championship points for testing.”

If Rosberg and Hamilton qualify first and second again, it will be the first time in F1 history that the front row has been exactly the same for seven races in succession.

McLaren brings updates to Melbourne – but is still playing catch up

At the other end of the grid, McLaren, which finished ninth in the constructors’ championship last year to record its worst finish since 1980, enters 2016 seeking to make progress with its engine supplier Honda.

The squad’s racing director, Eric Boullier, believes that McLaren arrives in Melbourne better prepared than in 2015, but he explained that it did not manage to complete its full programme of pre-season testing.

He said: “We are certainly a step ahead of where we were this time last year in terms of preparation – we have much more mileage under our belts and we’ve performed most of the necessary system checks that we were still working on during race weekends in 2015.

“That said, we didn’t manage to complete our final configuration and set-up work for the first race, so we go to Melbourne with a number of unknowns.

“It won’t be an easy start to the weekend in that sense, since we’ll need to concentrate on setting the car up for each session and readying the final specification of our package as soon as we get to Albert Park.

“Since the final pre-season test, there’s been a huge effort back in Woking to bring new parts to Australia and it’ll be good to finally get to the track on Friday and see how we fare.

“Our priority is to focus on extracting the most out of our own performance, while still maintaining reliability.”

Fernando Alonso returns to the Australian Grand Prix for the first time since 2014 – where he finished fourth – as the Spaniard missed the 2015 event as a result of concussion sustained in pre-season testing. Kevin Magnussen, who replaced him, did not take the start after his car broke down before the race began.

But Alonso does have an impressive history at Albert Park. As well as his win in 2006, the 34-year-old has never retired in his 13 starts in Australia and has not finished lower than fifth since 2003.

Alonso explained that while McLaren is still not hitting its desired performance levels, podium finishes are a realistic target for the British team in 2016 and he still believes the McLaren-Honda partnership can win the world championship together.

He said: “I think at the beginning of the year it will be difficult [because] after winter testing, we still miss a little bit of performance. But the championship is very long – 21 races [in] 10 months.

“I am sure our developing will be quite high and I think a podium possibility will be possible, but we want more than that.

“We go step by step but to be world champion is the final target with the team and myself. This year it seems that that will be extremely difficult but, next year or whenever it comes, we need to work with that target in mind.”