Polesitter Lewis Hamilton, speaking to Sky Sports: "I miss the old days of qualifying when you would go out and run and run and run. This whole out one lap is neat but I think people were saying it was not exciting for the fans. All my engineers were saying it would be the case, they told the FIA but they ignored them. For me it proved how smart my engineers are, although I knew that anyway.

"I don't have the solution. I didn't see it so I don't know what did or did not work. To improve you have to make mistakes. Perhaps this is a step in the wrong direction but I'm not saying go back to the old system."

Image source, Reuters

Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda, speaking to Sky Sports: "I fully agree with Christian Horner [about qualifying] - have a quick discussion before Bahrain. Everyone makes mistakes - this is a big mistake."

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, speaking to Sky Sports: "I think the new qualifying format is pretty rubbish. We need to discuss it. Everyone is trying to do their best to improve the show and if we haven't we need to discuss it. 

"The solution is not good in my opinion and that is why we have to look at it again."

I went from a happy face in Q1, loving the chaos of it all, to slight bemusement in Q2, to disappointment in Q3 when we were sat watching an empty track for the final two minutes.

I was expecting pistols at dawn between two drivers at the end, instead it was about as much fun as a water pistol fight in the middle of winter.

Image source, Getty Images

Sebastian Vettel, who start tomorrow's race third: "Not really [disappointed with the gap to the Mercedes].

"I believe we have made a step forward, especially tomorrow we should be closer. We expected Mercedes to be quick in qualifying. I was very happy to set the lap time I did and we decided to save a set of tyres for tomorrow. We have high hopes for the race, it’s a long year and the car has a lot of potential. Second row is a good achievement and the team’s been pushing hard."

Image source, Getty Images

Nico Rosberg, who will start second: "The last lap was good in Q3, just Lewis did a better job. It is impressive to see how the team, in the third year running now, appears to be the quickest out there by a good margin. It is amazing to see that. The risk is when you are dominating you start to become complacent but we were able to push through. Of course, not happy with second but lots of opportunities from that position tomorrow."

11) Bottas 12) Alonso 13) Button 14) Palmer 15) Magnussen 16) Ercisson 17) Nasr 18) Kvyat 19) Grosjean 20) Gutierrez 21) Haryanto 22) Wehrlein

Image source, F1.com

Lewis Hamilton, who will start on pole: "I really have to take my hat off to this team. To raise the bar once more in our third year inspires and motivates me. I enjoyed driving the car today in qualifying. There were some sexy laps, they felt so good, that is all you can hope for as a driver."

A 50th pole position for Lewis Hamilton and an early psychological blow for Nico Rosberg.

Image source, _

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, speaking to BBC Radio 5 live: "It didn't really work did that qualifying for me and we should apologise to the fans here. We didn't put on a great show.

"We need to learn from it. The important things is not to stick our head in the sand, address it properly first. I would prefer to go back to the qualifying sessions we had, but that is my personal opinion."

Tom Clarkson
BBC Radio 5 live pit-lane reporter

"We were meant to be seeing the last two cars fighting it out on the track at the same time. Something does need to change, we need to build to a crescendo."

Both Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton are getting weighed so qualifying is done. 

Still more than a minutes to go though...

Right, this leaves things a bit flat.

Everyone is in the pits, we know who is lining up where and the clock is still ticking down as per the new rules.

Kimi Raikkonen is the latest to be officially eliminated, he'll line up fourth on the grid.

What a lap!

Brilliant from Lewis Hamilton, he's slams down a 1:23.837, 0.360s quicker than Nico Rosberg, and he will take pole position for the Australian Grand Prix.

Image source, Getty Images

Max Verstappen will line up fifth on the grid.

Nico Rosberg goes second quickest with his first run on fresh tyres. He's 0.064s off Lewis Hamilton's first effort. 

Here comes Lewis Hamilton...