Following the collapse of HRT F1 in December 2012,[11] the grid for the season was reduced to twenty-two entries, necessitating changes to the structure of qualifying.

[12] During the winter off-season, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile introduced new rules restricting the use of the Drag Reduction System during free practice and qualifying, limiting its use to the circuit's designated DRS zones.

[15] Prior to the first qualifying session of the season, Melbourne had experienced a record heatwave and no rain for almost the entire month of March.

As the track dried out, however, drivers switched to intermediate tyres and lap times began dropping for over the remainder of the session.

Pastor Maldonado qualified seventeenth after going off the circuit, whilst Gutiérrez's crash meant that the Mexican was unable to continue and was subsequently eliminated in eighteenth place.

Marussia's Jules Bianchi (on his Formula One debut) and Max Chilton qualified nineteenth and twentieth respectively, ahead of the Caterhams of Giedo van der Garde and Charles Pic.

Marshalls resorted to brooms in a bid to remove puddles forming on the poorly drained public road surface.

With qualifying and the race being run late in the afternoon to accommodate European television audiences, twilight approached and the stewards tried to schedule a restart at 18:30 and then finally 18:50.

In the end, it was Nico Hülkenberg, Adrian Sutil, Jean-Éric Vergne, Daniel Ricciardo, Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas who failed to make it through to Q3.

[19] The chief beneficiaries of this were the Ferraris, with Felipe Massa moving from fourth to second and Alonso to third after overtaking Lewis Hamilton around the outside of Turn 3.

Kimi Räikkönen moved up to fifth ahead of Nico Rosberg and Webber and on the second lap took fourth from Hamilton by passing him at Turn 11.

His Lotus teammate Romain Grosjean went backwards from eighth to eleventh, losing places to Paul di Resta, Jenson Button and Adrian Sutil.

The quartet rejoined in the same order, but more spread out due to Vettel and Massa gaining an extra lap on the new set of tyres.

Hamilton and Rosberg, having realized that they did not have the pace of those in front, ran till lap 13 and 14 respectively in order to attempt a two-stop strategy.

This left Sutil and Sergio Pérez, two of the drivers who elected to start the race on mediums out in front ahead of Vettel, Massa, Alonso and Räikkönen.

The Briton flatspotted his tyre and had to pit immediately and rejoined in sixth place just ahead of di Resta and Webber.

When Sutil made his final pitstop on lap 46 while running third, he had to switch to the super-soft tyres as he had started on the mediums unlike the leaders.

The battle for ninth was ultimately won by Button, with Grosjean taking the final point, holding off Pérez and Jean-Éric Vergne.