Lewis Hamilton has come out on top in the first qualifying session of the season, beating teammate Valtteri Bottas to pole position.

Bottas held provisional pole after the first run in Q3, but lost out in the end as Hamilton made up the time he lost after making a slight mistake at the first corner on his opening run. 

The Briton's fastest lap was a 1:20.486, which is a new track record for Albert Park. Sebastian Vettel was third fastest in the Ferrari, however the four-time world champion was seven-tenths down on his rival.

Max Verstappen was fourth and was the only Red Bull inside the top ten, as Pierre Gasly was caught out in Q1 by an improving track and is set to line up on tomorrow's grid in 17th.

Charles Leclerc will start in fifth place for Ferrari, but was over a second down on Lewis Hamilton's pole-setting lap time. 

Haas won the opening qualifying battle for the 'best of the rest' spot as it ended the session in sixth and seventh, with Romain Grosjean beating teammate Kevin Magnussen.

Lando Norris was an impressive eighth for McLaren, as the rookie got the better of his experienced teammate Carlos Sainz.

In fact, all three rookie drivers out-qualified their teammates on Saturday afternoon in Melbourne as Alexander Albon beat Daniil Kvyat at Toro Rosso, and George Russell out-qualified Robert Kubica - albeit for the final two spots on the grid.

Kubica ran into a bit of trouble in Q3, hitting the wall at Turn 10 which resulted in a puncture. Sainz and Stroll joined the two Williams' and Gasly in the bottom five.

Both Renault's failed to make it into the final stage of qualifying, and local favourite Daniel Ricciardo was out-done by teammate Nico Hulkenberg, who got the better of the Australian by just 0.008s.

On his debut for Alfa Romeo, Kimi Raikkonen posted the ninth fastest time in Q3 and will line up on the fifth row of the grid on Sunday alongside Sergio Perez. Raikkonen's teammate Antonio Giovinazzi ended the session in 14th.