Melbourne, 27 March

Even though Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro scored a one-two finish in the season opener in Bahrain, it was clear that the Red Bull had a slight edge in terms of pure performance over the F10. Two weeks later and the result of qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix confirms that initial assessment, as tomorrow’s race sees Sebastian Vettel start from pole position with his team-mate and local favourite, Mark Webber alongside him.



However, Fernando Alonso is still handily placed third, behind the pole man and following him in fifth is Felipe Massa, who admitted that since the track got cooler, he has struggled with getting his tyres to the correct operating temperature. With both men on the clean side of the track, that could help their situation at the start. Sandwiched between the two Prancing Horse cars in fourth spot is the McLaren of reigning world champion Jenson Button, while Felipe shares row three with sixth placed Nico Rosberg in the Mercedes. All the times were very close, which is down to the fact that there is not much to choose between the teams in the early part of the season and also because the Albert Park lap is not very long. However, the circuit is famous for providing exciting racing, with the Safety Car often called out to deal with incidents which cannot be cleared away easily, given it is a street circuit. Rain has put in an appearance on both days of track action so far and may well do so again on race day. A wet track would definitely add to the uncertainty of a race that is already hard to predict, but at least cloudy skies would mean the drivers will not be dazzled by the setting sun, something which has concerned many of them after last year’s first running of this race in the hours of twilight.