Alonso : No idea if he can beat Red Bull

Fernando Alonso on Saturday shed no light on suggestions he might be able to challenge the Red Bulls for victory at Albert Park.

As in Bahrain two weeks ago, the Ferrari driver has qualified third, but the cars ahead of him on the Melbourne grid are both on-form Red Bulls led by back-to-back pole sitter Sebastian Vettel.

Asked if Ferrari’s race pace might give him the edge on Sunday evening, the Spaniard answered: "No idea", but he did admit that beating the Renault powered cars "was a difficult thing to do here".

Local hero Webber, 33, was visibly disappointed with second on the grid, as he crassly likened the eight-hundredth gap to his young German teammate as a "bee’s d**k".

After his brush with the police on Friday night, Lewis Hamilton was half a second slower than his McLaren teammate and missed the cut for the top ten.

His team boss Martin Whitmarsh told the BBC that the ’hoon’ story had been "blown out of proportion" by the media, admitting that Hamilton "will be disappointed with his performance".

With a better showing than in Bahrain was Michael Schumacher, who despite still trailing his teammate Nico Rosberg said Melbourne has been "a little bit more fun" than his comeback event.