Webber pleased despite no pole

Red Bull dominated all three segments of today's qualifying session in Melbourne and Vettel managed to pip local hero Webber to pole by just 0.116s.

Webber did set the fastest times in sectors one and three on his final run, but lost time in the middle part of the lap and wound up second.

"It went very, very well today," said Webber. "Seb and I are trying to find time that is probably not there, looking for lap time that is risky to get.

"I wasn't keen on repeating my Bahrain performance [where Webber made a mistake in Q3 and wound up on row four] and it was a good lap - a bee's dick off pole!"

"Obviously I am not happy with order today, but we had a good battle today and I will be happy in the morning when I wake up because I am in a good position to have a decent race.

"This place is extremely unpredictable come Sunday afternoon, not only the circuit but the changeable weather, and tomorrow is a long, long race with the possibility of safety cars and a lot of smaller teams and inexperienced drivers getting used to this type of venue.

"I don't think we will be finishing in the order of the top 10 we've seen today."

Webber also praised the effort of his team, which made changes to the car overnight to compensate for today's cooler track conditions.

"The team has done a great job all weekend. We have been competitive all weekend, always in the top few.

"We know we have some very good opposition here, but in the end we got the maximum result for the team today."