Lewis Hamilton scored his 73rd career pole in Melbourne. He already holds the absolute record, having taken over the baton from F1 legend Michael Schumacher at least year's Italian GP.
2018 is the 12th consecutive season in which Hamilton has scored at least one pole position. Only Schumacher is ahead in this regard, having scored poles for 13 straight seasons (1994-2006).
Following his accident in qualifying and the subsequent penalty for a change of gearbox, Valtteri Bottas was forced to start from 15th on the grid. This was his worst starting position since joining Mercedes last year, his previous worst grid place being ninth (2017 British GP).
Thanks in part to Daniel Ricciardo's three-place penalty, Kevin Magnussen was able to start the race from fifth - the highest grid position for Haas. With Romain Grosjean starting alongside in sixth, it was the American outfit's best qualifying performance.
Charles Leclerc and Sergey Sirtokin became the 760th and 761st drivers to start a Formula 1 grand prix.
Vettel leapfrogged Hamilton during the VSC period and led 40 laps en route to victory. He has now spent over 3000 laps in the lead and only trails Schumacher (5111) and Hamilton (3535) in the overall charts.
It was Vettel's 48th win in F1 and 230th for Ferrari. Quite aptly, it came at Scuderia's 950th grand prix appearance.
It was only the fifth time Vettel won a race after qualifying outside the front row. At each of the five occasions, he started third on the grid.
It was Vettel's 100th podium position, putting him in an elite club alongside Schumacher (155), Hamilton (118) and Alain Prost (106).
For the 33rd time in his career, Hamilton was unable to convert a pole to a win. Only his hero Ayrton Senna is ahead in this unwanted ranking, the Brazilian having lost 36 races despite taking pole.
Hamilton has failed to convert a pole to a win at Melbourne five times - 2012 (third), 2014 (retirement), 2016 (second), 2017 (second), and 2018 (second).
However, Hamilton managed to take his points-scoring streak to 26 races. He can potentially match Kimi Raikkonen's 27 race record next month in Bahrain.
Meanwhile,Raikk onen scored his 92nd podium finish in Melbourne after recording his 40th front row start on Saturday.
Daniel Ricciardo will have to wait another year for a home podium after he could only manage a fourth place finish on Sunday. The Australian did stood up on the rostrum in 2014, but was later disqualified on technical grounds.
Despite not being able to make it to the top three, Ricciardo did manage the race's fastest lap in pursuit of Raikkonen. It was the 10th fastest lap of his career, putting him on level with Graham Hill and Mario Andretti.
in Australia, Fernando Alonso scored his and McLaren's first top five finish since the 2016 US Grand Prix. It was also McLaren's first double points finish since last year's Hungarian GP.
With Nico Hulkenberg finishing seventh and Carlos Sainz Jr 10th, Renault secured its first double points result since returning as a constructor in 2016.
Eighth was Bottas' worst finish since joining the Mercedes F1 team. His previous worst result, apart from the DNF at Spain, came in China, where he could only muster sixth.
After finishing in the points for 14 consecutive races, neither of the Force India drivers featured inside the top 10 in Melbourne. The outfit previously missed out on points at last year's Monaco GP.
Haas suffered a double retirement for the third time in its short history at Albert Park. Coincidentally, neither of the American team's drivers finished last year's Australian GP either.
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