Webber warns fans not to expect much

As the only Australian driver on the circuit, the Red Bull driver is always the centre of attention when the Formula One circus rolls into Melbourne.

No Australian has ever finished on the podium at their home Grand Prix and Webber said his dream of winning the race would probably have to wait at least another year, despite posting the second fastest time in Friday's afternoon session.

"We know not to read too much into it," Webber told a news conference.

"We're not second quickest. We're still fighting for the back of the points."

Webber also set the fifth best time in the opening practice session but said he expected to slide back down the grid when official qualifying took place on Saturday.

"There were different programmes going on today and we decided to do that sort of programme," he said.

"I was surprised we didn't end up further down, but that's just how it ended up. Other people, probably ran a little bit more fuel."

Despite his blunt assessment of his prospects, Webber said he was still hopeful of a creditable showing in Sunday's race after.

Red Bull showed they had plenty of speed last year but were plagued by regular breakdowns and Webber said the team would be far more reliable this year.

"The car's not working too badly," he said.

"The guys have done a good job, we've had a pretty smooth run, no real reliability problems and we're in good shape to get ready for qualifying.

"The reliability was very poor last year and absolutely unacceptable how many failures we had.

"This year the team's worked really hard on addressing that because that's where we have to be. We have to make sure that we are equal if not better than other teams."

Webber finished fifth on his Formula One debut at the 2002 Australian Grand Prix when he was behind the wheel of the struggling Minardi team but has failed to improve on that position in his five subsequent attempts.