Daniel Ricciardo admitted the gap to Lewis Hamilton in Saturday's qualifying at the Australian GP "sucks" after the Briton claimed his seventh pole Down Under.

The performance of the top three teams had looked very close during the all-important session to decide the grid for Sunday's race.

That was before the world champion turned up the power in his Mercedes and improved by almost 0.9s on his final lap, eventually securing the top spot by two-thirds of a second.

Hamilton's pace sat as another harsh reminder of how dominant the German manufacturer's engine still is versus Ferrari and Red Bull supplier Renault.

"That sucks," Ricciardo, who was fifth fastest but will start eighth after a penalty, commented.

"It's frustrating because I think everyone else wants to see them [Mercedes] get challenged a bit more, so that was a little bit of a punch in the stomach to everyone."

Mercedes' ability to up the power output for single lap bursts is not a new threat as was proven by Red Bull trying to counteract it by opting for a different tyre strategy at the start of tomorrow's Grand Prix.

But having seen Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen covered by just 0.061s at one point before an eventual margin of 0.715s, Ricciardo concedes the German manufacturer is simply "too good".

"I didn't expect that much," the 28-year-old said. "Particularly from Q2 to Q3 - I knew they had a bit more, I expected them to be more than two tenths quicker than us.

"Hopefully we can catch up, hopefully in the race they don't have as much of that because that's a bit scary, that mode they've got. We've got to try and figure it out.

"I think obviously their car and their package is too good," he added.

"It's not to discredit Lewis, not at all, but I think even him at 90% with that package, he still would've got pole. I feel any of us top guys could've made that happen [in the Mercedes]."

Hamilton, meanwhile, rejected the argument that the 'party mode' was the deciding factor in his lap time.

"On that lap, I was in the same mode as lap before - it was about getting the tyres in the right temperature and getting the sectors right," he claimed.

"I can assure you we don't have a party mode - I used the same mode from Q2 to the end of Q3.

"There was no extra mode, no extra button I engaged."