Hamilton has cruised to victory at the Australian Grand Prix, lapping Daniel Ricciardo in the final stages of the race in a strong warning of Mercedes superiority.

Hamilton was never headed after starting on poll as Mercedes made it another one-two finish.

Nico Rosberg finished about 1.3 seconds behind his teammate, but the gap back to Seb Vettel (Ferrari) in third was a whopping 34.5 seconds.

Ricciardo was passed by Felipe Nasr on the first lap and spent the rest of the day in a fruitless chase of the Sauber driver before finishing sixth.

It wasn’t the worst result given the trouble Red Bull had in the lead-up to the race — and the number of drivers who failed to finish.

“We got away with some points but other than that there’s not much more (to be positive about),” Ricciardo said.

“We got lapped so obviously we’ve got some pace to find.”

Ricciardo described the frustration of being unable to launch an attack on Nasr before apologising to fans for the lack of action.

“It was a little bit of a boring race,” he said. “I feel sorry for the fans.”