Australian Grand Prix 2018 LIVE: Latest as Lewis Hamilton starts on pole in Melbourne

Lewis Hamilton will start on pole after he produced a brilliant lap in Q3 to snatch top spot by a mammoth 0.6 seconds.

It had looked as though Sebastian Vettel would challenge strongly after logging the fastest lap in Q2, but the Mercedes driver appeared to find an extra gear in the final session although he was left vehemently denying afterwards that he had switched the car's engine into "party mode" to give him the extra speed.

But it got worse for Vettel as he was pipped to second by Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen and will start third alongside Max Verstappen on the second row.

Australian Grand Prix 2018 LIVE

6.05am: It's picture day too as all 20 drivers line up together for the first time. Sergey Sirotkin, furthest left as we look, appears not to be interested. Probably thinking about starting a Grand Prix for the very first time along with the only other true rookie Charles Leclerc in the Sauber. Big day for those two.

5.55am: It's a 10 past the hour start for every race this year, remember, so you've got 15 minutes until we get going. Stoffel Vandoorne says it's pretty windy out there which could make things very tricky. National anthems now.

5.45am: Oh it's getting really quite warm actually, with some suggestion that could affect the degradation of the tyres. The teams of course have not had much chance to practice in higher track temperatures - thanks to a snowy testing period and rain on Saturday morning - so they will be in the unknown to a certain extent.

However, a one-stop is said to be the preferred strategy with the majority of teams starting on the ultra-softs.

Except the Red Bulls that is, who put on the red-rimmed super-softs for Q2 and will hope to go a bit longer in their first stint and overcut some of their rivals. Intriguing.

5.30am: Christmas is finally here. The new season is 40 minutes away from getting underway under cloudy skies in Melbourne. There MIGHT be some rain later in the day but at the moment it's warm and pretty sunny in moments when the cloud breaks.

Also like Christmas, you probably haven't slept much. Well, neither have I, so let's all try to get through this together. British Summer Time, eh?