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Qualifying at Melbourne Park looked set for a dramatic finish with only 0.061secs separating Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen before their final runs. But the Mercedes driver

produced a lap record to take pole by over 0.6secs and leave a mammoth gap to the rest of the field with Ricciardo finishing in fifth, nearly a second behind. And despite high hopes going

into the weekend, Ricciardo says Mercedes showed everyone their superiority. "I knew that they would have a bit more, and I expected them to be more than two tenths quicker than us, but

to go that much quicker at the end, that was like them doing this [shows the finger] to everyone," he said. "It was like throwing a pie in everyone's face. So look they can

do it, they are obviously the ones that are leading. “I know it would be nice to be in that position, but for everyone else it sucks!" He added: "Yeah that sucks. It is frustrating

because I am over it. Everyone else wants to see them get challenged a bit more. “That was a little bit of a punch in the stomach to everyone. "So I know they are loving it, they are

in a good position, but everyone else is hating it. “So hopefully we can catch up. “Hopefully in the race they don't have as much as that because that is a bit scary that [qualifying

engine] mode they got."