The Briton lapped the Albert Park circuit in a searing one minute and 21.164 seconds to cross the line 0.664 seconds clear of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.
World champion Nico Rosberg's retirement announcement on Friday came as a complete surprise even to the man who knows most of Formula One's best-kept secrets, commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone.
The pole was Hamilton's ninth in 10 races this season, the 47th of his career and left the Briton perfectly placed for a fifth career win at the Hungaroring.
Mercedes F1 GP's Nico Rosberg won his first Formula One Championship after finishing 2nd in the tight race at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
Formula One championship leader Nico Rosberg stormed to pole position for the Chinese Grand Prix in a mixed Saturday qualifying session for Mercedes, with world champion Lewis Hamilton left at the back of the grid after engine trouble prevented him setting a time.
A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Wednesday
Finland's Valtteri Bottas took pole position for the Russian Grand Prix on Saturday with Mercedes team mate and Formula One leader Lewis Hamilton having to settle for second place on the starting grid.
Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes stormed to pole position with a scorching lap in qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix as title rival Sebastian Vettel was left stranded in the garage and will start dead last.
'The heart still bleeds for the Brazilian who gave us the finest, most memorable start we've seen in Formula One for many a year,' says Raja Sen.
Hamilton held off a mid-race challenge from Red Bull's Max Verstappen to register a record-equalling fourth triumph at the floodlit Marina Bay Street Circuit track, while Vettel finished third to slip further behind in the title race.
Nico Rosberg was hoping to savour, but it must have tasted sweeter than the champagne he drank out of Daniel Ricciardo's boot as the German inched closer to his maiden Formula One title.
The clock is ticking for some of Formula One's big name drivers, with world champions and race winners out of contract at the end of the season and a restless young generation eager to take their places.
Lewis Hamilton lost a battle but regained a rival after Sebastian Vettel won Sunday's Australian season-opener for Ferrari.
Team mate Sebastian Vettel was second fastest to complete the front-row sweep, with championship leader Lewis Hamilton third for Mercedes.
Ferrari's times were eye-catching, and quicker than anything from last year's weather-affected first four-day test at the Circuit de Catalunya.
Ferrari made a strong start to the first day of Formula One testing, on Monday, with four-times world champion Sebastian Vettel top of the timesheets at lunchtime with 72 laps completed.
The Mercedes driver was fastest in every phase of qualifying to take pole with a time of one minute 42.553 seconds, a track record.
German Nico Rosberg eased to victory in a chaotic Belgian Formula One Grand Prix on Sunday.
Next season, if Ferrari can carry their gathering momentum into 2020, could even see Leclerc challenging for the championship after losing out to Hamilton's Mercedes outfit this year.
Lewis Hamilton believes his Mercedes Formula One team can live up to their advance billing as favourites when the season starts in Australia next week.
Hamilton said he would still be "incredibly proud" to pull level with "an icon like Michael" and seven was way beyond his wildest dreams, but numbers and titles maybe meant more to those on the outside.
Former world champion Kimi Raikkonen has renewed his contract with Ferrari and will race for them again next season, the Formula One team said.
British media reports have suggested the new deal could be worth up to 40 million pounds ($52 million) a year and is likely to make the four-time F1 champion the sport's top earner.
The Formula One season winds up in Abu Dhabi on Sunday with both titles won, Lewis Hamilton aiming to close the year on a winning note and big money still at stake for those further down the paddock pecking order.
Michael Schumacher faces a 'long fight' for recovery as the first anniversary of his skiing accident approaches, the former Formula One driver's manager said.
Silverstone can provide the antidote to Austria for Lewis Hamilton this weekend, with a record sixth British Grand Prix win -- and his fifth in a row -- there for the taking.
The Mercedes driver is 14 points clear of his rival and fellow four-times world champion after winning in France on Sunday and heads to Spielberg confident of continuing the momentum.
Ferrari chairman Sergio Marchionne said while he supported cost-cutting, there are other strategic issues under discussion that could force Ferrari to consider racing elsewhere.
In a statement explaining how the tyres are marked at their Turkish factory with embedded and traceable bar codes that cannot be swapped, Pirelli said their process was designed to be tamper-proof and random.
Charles Leclerc put Ferrari on pole position for their home Italian Formula One Grand Prix on Saturday in a qualifying session that ended in farce and with drivers under investigation.
Factbox on Dutch driver Max Verstappen, who became Formula One's youngest race winner, aged 18, at the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday.
Formula One championship leader Nico Rosberg's hopes of an eighth successive win, and fifth of the season, disappeared on Sunday after a collision with Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap of the Spanish Grand Prix.
Germany's Nico Rosberg put Mercedes on pole position for the US Formula One Grand Prix on Saturday with championship leading team mate Lewis Hamilton qualifying second. Mercedes-powered Williams filled the second row with Finland's Valtteri Bottas third fastest and Brazilian Felipe Massa fourth.
Red Bull's Mark Webber faces a 10-place grid penalty at the Korean Grand Prix after being reprimanded for hitching a lift on Fernando Alonso's Ferrari at the end of Sunday's race in Singapore.
Rain and crashes twice halted the potentially title-deciding Brazilian Formula One Grand Prix on Sunday with the crowd booing and triple world champion Lewis Hamilton disagreeing with officials.
Formula One's new qualifying format was given a second chance in Bahrain on Saturday after flopping on its debut in Australia but team bosses and drivers declared it as bad as before.
Lewis Hamilton took a huge stride towards a fourth Formula One title on Sunday with victory in an incident-packed Singapore Grand Prix after Ferrari title rival Sebastian Vettel crashed out at the start.
The win also set a record, one that Hamilton had previously shared with seven times champion Michael Schumacher, of 41 wins from pole position.
'I'm the first one to say we shouldn't be speaking bad about things on TV, but I think the new qualifying format is pretty rubbish'
World champion Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheets for Mercedes in both practice sessions of the Australian Grand Prix on Friday but team mate Nico Rosberg crashed as waterlogged conditions put a dampener on Formula One's season opener.
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