Webber happy despite no pole

The Australian jumped to the top of the timesheet with his final lap in Q3, but Vettel was running behind him on the road and went quarter of a second faster as time expired.

"I was happy with my lap," Webber said afterwards. "I gave it everything and it wasn't enough. You'd like to be a bit further up, but we are in the position we deserve to be - Seb stopped the sand a bit quicker than I did, but tomorrow is a long race.

"It's a big credit to the team to lock out the front row. We did that in Melbourne and had a good chance in Malaysia. It's very positive for the team, and especially for the mechanics - there was a lot of stuff coming out on the plane last night, which wasn't easy because of the exploding volcano."

Webber added that he was surprised that neither McLaren was able to challenge for pole position after Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button set the pace in practice.

"If you look at the last year and a half or so, they love the publicity on Friday night," Webber said. "They have a quick car, they're always fast on Friday. Saturday, okay, they're not a million miles away, but I'm surprised when you look at Fernando [Alonso] and them. They had a pretty tough qualifying for whatever reason.