World champion Lewis Hamilton's new McLaren is too slow and it could be some time before it can win races, the Formula One team said on Friday in a frank acknowledgment of their pre-season problems.
Ferrari title rival Sebastian Vettel qualified only ninth.
Lewis Hamilton has spoken about his mental and emotional struggles
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.
Briton's Lewis Hamilton won the Malaysian Grand Prix with a pole-to-flag victory ahead of Nico Rosberg on Sunday in a first Mercedes one-two since they returned to Formula One as a works team in 2010.
Lewis Hamilton will head into his home British Grand Prix praying for the sake of the fans that angry Mercedes bosses continue to allow him and team mate Nico Rosberg to race each other freely.
Lewis Hamilton ended a long-running Formula One feud with Felipe Massa on Sunday by walking up to the Ferrari driver after the Brazilian Grand Prix and giving him a hug.
Formula One's governing body faced calls to modify qualifying procedures for safety reasons after McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen were penalised in Malaysia at the weekend. Championship leader Hamilton and his team mate were demoted five places on the starting grid at Sepang for impeding rivals when they slowed to save fuel after completing their final qualifying laps.
The German, who will start on pole for the third year in a row in Valencia, will have McLaren's championship leader Lewis Hamilton alongside on the front row.
Real Madrid striker Cristiano Ronaldo took the overseas personality of the year prize.
Lewis Hamilton was made to wait for his fifth Formula One world championship, on Sunday, after the Mercedes driver finished only third in a US Grand Prix won by Ferrari veteran Kimi Raikkonen.
Lewis Hamilton won the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday to chalk up his fourth victory in a row and wrest the Formula One championship lead from Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg.
As the Formula One season moves into its second half Sebastian Vettel's armour suddenly appears to have some chinks after Lewis Hamilton's superb victory left the German in the shade for the second consecutive race in his previously imperious Red Bull.
Stage is set for Mumbai's motorsports fans to witness Formula One star Lewis Hamilton scorching the roads of the Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai on Sunday.
Ferrari were the fastest in pre-season testing, raising suspicions that their new SF70H car has closed the chasm between Mercedes and the rest.
The key to being a really quick Formula One driver, is to take risks on the racetrack and be in no rush to start a family, according to McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.
The key to being a really quick Formula One driver, is to take risks on the racetrack and be in no rush to start a family, according to McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.
Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton won the Belgian Grand Prix from pole position on Sunday to increase his lead over Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg to 28 points with eight races remaining.
McLaren questioned Lewis Hamilton's version of events on Friday after the 2008 Formula One champion told an interviewer he had been thrown out of his old team's garages in pre-season testing.
Lewis Hamilton's hopes of a hat-trick of pole positions disappeared at the Chinese Grand Prix on Thursday when McLaren said he would collect a five place penalty on the starting grid for an unscheduled gearbox change.
Lewis Hamilton wrote a personal letter to the head of Formula One's governing body to escape a possible race ban for his Monaco Grand Prix outburst against stewards and rivals.
Lewis Hamilton celebrated his 50th Formula One victory on Sunday with a pole-to-flag U.S. Grand Prix drive that kept his title hopes alive and trimmed Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg's lead to 26 points with three races remaining. Rosberg, who had been chasing his 10th triumph of the season, finished second on a sunny Texan afternoon with a big crowd but little drama -- even if Hamilton spent much of it worrying about reliability. The straightforward victory was Hamilton's fourth in Texas in five seasons and ended a barren stretch for the triple world champion dating back to his last win in Germany in July.
Britain's George Russell will stand in for Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes for Sunday's Sakhir Grand Prix after being released by Williams.
'As soon as I leave the races I'm able to switch off. I've got, obviously other things that I'm doing, and in between, trying to fit in the training, for example, in the last week, has not been easy'
McLaren's Lewis Hamilton said on Thursday that he missed winning and intended to clamber back on top of the podium in Turkey this weekend. "This weekend obviously I want to get points, but I want to win. I miss winning, so that's my plan," the 23-year-old told reporters at the Istanbul Park circuit.
The X Factor judge Nicole Scherzinger is reportedly broken after her split from Formula 1 ace Lewis Hamilton, as she kept breaking down and crying during the three-day sunshine stint in Antigua.
Monaco's Leclerc, who had started on pole position for the first time, lost power with 10 laps to go while leading and finished third with an extra point for the fastest lap.
Former champion Nigel Mansell has hailed Lewis Hamilton as the Formula One driver to beat while rejecting comparisons between the 23-year-old Briton and golfer Tiger Woods. "I don't think he is like Tiger Woods at all," the 1992 champion, also a keen golfer, told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper on Friday.
The 21-year-old Briton will race for McLaren next year alongside double world champion Fernando Alonso.
Pre-season testing times suggest that Ferrari and McLaren, who won all the races between them last year, are still in a class of their own.
Germany's Nico Rosberg celebrated his first Formula One world championship on Sunday after finishing runner-up in a tense Abu Dhabi Grand Prix won by Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton amid accusations of 'dirty tricks'.
Norris's teammate Oscar Piastri, who spun off and finished ninth in his home race last Sunday after starting on the front row and challenging for the lead, has another good chance to rev up his season.
'Vettel disgraced himself, to be honest'
Reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton has lashed out at the plans of new qualifying format in the Formula One, saying the drivers should be consulted before changing the rules.
The Briton will be toiling flat out on May Day, the international workers' holiday, to deny his German rival a seventh successive win and fourth of the sport's longest ever season.
Lewis Hamilton's hopes of securing the Formula One title in China this weekend could be scuppered by a video posted on the Internet.
Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the Italian Grand Prix on Saturday with championship-leading Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg qualifying alongside him on the front row.
Valtteri Bottas took pole position for Formula One's 70th Anniversary Grand Prix ahead of championship-leading Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton on Saturday.
McLaren's Oscar Piastri celebrated pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix, his 50th Formula One race, while dejected championship-leading teammate Lando Norris qualified sixth and said he had been "clueless on track".
'NO problem. Nobody was hurt, which is the most important thing'
