Vettel has 'unfinished' Grand Prix business

Sebastian Vettel has vowed to complete some unfinished business for Red Bull-Renault after yesterday snaring a second consecutive pole position for the Australian Grand Prix. Vettel claimed the pole in Bahrain a fortnight ago, but subsequently finished fourth behind Ferrari's Fernando Alonso in the season-opening Grand Prix after leading for most part.

The German claimed his seventh career pole when he nudged out his teammate Mark Webber by 0.116 seconds to set up an all Red Bull front row on the race grid for today's 58-lap Australian GP on the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne.

"We didn't really get the job done in Bahrain so we will try to do it here," Vettel said. Vettel, who is bidding for his sixth GP victory in 45 starts, clocked a fastest lap in the third and final qualifying stage of one minute 23.919 seconds. The 22-year-old German is expecting an incident-packed race on the bumpy street circuit in contrast to the predictability of the Bahrain race. "This circuit has a nature that there is more action than probably in Bahrain," he said.

"There are more things happening, the circuit is not that long so you might have more situations with lapping cars which can always be a dangerous situation for all.

"We will have more excitement tomorrow, just because of the circuit and it's a bit closer [teams] here than in Bahrain and we don't know what the weather will be at race time."

Webber said he was not daunted by the prospect of trying to win his home GP at the ninth attempt after some frustrating failures since 2002. "Not really because tomorrow's newspapers will be wrapped in fish and chips on Monday, they're very fickle and they think this is the only race of the season for the people down here," Webber told a reporter.

"I have a much bigger thing in mind, a good result tomorrow and of course I'm keen to do well here but every Grand Prix is a very respectful thing to take part in and whichever race I'm in I always do my best."

Ferrari's two-time world champion Alonso of Spain was third fastest and will start on the second row of the grid alongside reigning world champion Jenson Button in a McLaren Mercedes.

"I am confident for tomorrow's race, but all three of us [top qualifiers] know this is a very long race with the many things that happen here and it's not clear whether it will be a dry track, so anything can happen," Alonso said.

Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa was fifth quickest just ahead of German Mercedes GP driver Nico Rosberg.

Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher in a Mercedes GP will start on the fourth row of the grid alongside Brazilian Rubens Barrichello.

"I would guess the ranking reflects the situation well and our performance is probably the maximum for our car at the moment," Schumacher said.

"We still have a lot in hand for tomorrow's race, and I am on the clean side of the grid for the start."

The shock failure in the qualifying session was former world champion Lewis Hamilton, who missed out on the final stage of qualifying. The British McLaren Mercedes driver was 11th fastest in the second qualifying stage in 1:25.184 and missed out on the top 10 cars into the third and final stage by 0.062secs.

Grid positions

1. Sebastian Vettel (Germany) RedBull - Renault

2. Mark Webber (Australia) RedBull - Renault

3. Fernando Alonso (Spain) Ferrari

4. Jenson Button (Britain) McLaren

5. Felipe Massa (Brazil) Ferrari

6. Nico Rosberg (Germany) Mercedes

7. Michael Schumacher (Germany) Mercedes

8. Rubens Barrichello (Brazil) Williams - Cosworth

9. Robert Kubica (Poland) Renault

10. Adrian Sutil (Germany) Force India - Mercedes

11. Lewis Hamilton (Britain) McLaren

12. Sebastien Buemi (Switzerland) Toro Rosso - Ferrari

13. Vitantonio Liuzzi (Italy) Force India - Mercedes

14. Pedro de la Rosa (Spain) BMW Sauber - Ferrari

15. Nico Huelkenberg (Germany) Williams - Cosworth

16. Kamui Kobayashi (Japan) BMW Sauber - Ferrari

17. Jaime Alguersuari (Spain) Toro Rosso - Ferrari

18. Vitaly Petrov (Russia) Renault

19. Heikki Kovalainen (Finland) Lotus - Cosworth

20. Jarno Trulli (Italy) Lotus - Cosworth

21. Timo Glock (Germany) Virgin - Cosworth

22. Lucas Di Grassi (Brazil) Virgin - Cosworth

23. Bruno Senna (Brazil) HRT - Cosworth

24. Karun Chandhok (India) HRT - Cosworth

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