Webber: Red Bull making good progress

The Australian was Felipe Massa's closest challenger yesterday and, although teams can always run low fuel to flatter their speed, Webber is adamant that his RB3 is much improved from how it was in the first three races.

"We have worked on set-ups for here and we are definitely having a fair crack at it," Webber told autosport.com. "Conditions are always different from the tests to the races, but we seem to have some speed.

"We are definitely moving in the right direction."

Red Bull Racing have run their seamless shift gearbox for the first time at Barcelona this week, and are currently evaluating whether or not to race it for the first time at next week's Spanish Grand Prix.

Although it is likely that reliability will not be bulletproof just yet, Webber thinks the new gearshift system provides a step forward for the team.

"We have worked a lot on the gearbox. We had it off (on Wednesday) afternoon to see (how it compared), and it seems good. The balance seems quite good, so we will see."