Hamilton targets podium finish

The world champion posted his most competitive qualifying performance of the season so far on Saturday, and added afterwards that he considered his improving MP4-24 has felt much better to drive this weekend.

"I think this a result of all the team's work," Hamilton told the BBC. "We have been pushing very hard over the last couple of months, especially when we arrived in Melbourne we realised we needed to keep cracking on.

"The car feels a lot better this weekend, even though we didn't make too many updates. But I enjoyed driving the car and I am looking forward to more updates coming in the future.

"It will be interesting just to see what the other guys are doing in front, but I think for the strategy they have told me, we should be able to fight for a couple of positions in front."

Hamilton's team-mate Heikki Kovalainen ended the session in a 'frustrating' 11th position, having been knocked out of qualifying in Q2.

"We always aim for the top ten, I think we just have a quick enough car to get there now, but I had no more to give so that was the end of story today," he said.

"I didn't have any problems and the balance has been pretty good all weekend, we were just missing a bit of pace."