'Boring' race fine with on-pole Vettel

Formula One fans may be demanding the opposite, but Sebastian Vettel would like nothing more than a boring race in tomorrow’s Australian Grand Pix after securing his second successive pole position.

The 22-year-old endured a race to forget at Albert Park 12 months ago when he collided with Robert Kubica while lying second with just a few laps remaining.

Bad luck prevented the German from claiming victory in this season’s opener in Bahrain two weeks ago when a spark plug problem saw him drop from first to fourth.

That race received plenty of criticism due to a lack of overtaking, but Vettel may be alone in hoping for something similar tomorrow.

“I hope for a boring race and we finish as we start,” he said. “I’m sorry for you but we didn’t really get the job done in Bahrain so we will try to do it here.

“In Bahrain we were obviously a bit unlucky with the failure that we had. A spark plug failure doesn’t really happen too often but it happened in that case. The main thing is that we carried on and we still finished fourth.”

The Red Bulls of Vettel and Mark Webber have shown impressive pace so far and, along with Ferrari, are the standout performers in the early stages of the season.

Vettel shot to the top of the order midway through Q3 today and, despite the best efforts of Webber, remained there until the end.

“I think we have nothing to fear,” he added. “We have good and strong people on board.

“Because the car is new you always have some problems here and there to solve. We solved them and so far we’ve had no issues. In that regard I’m quite confident.”

Webber starts from second on the grid as he bids to claim a maiden victory at his home grand prix.

“I am in a good position to have a decent race, but this place is incredibly unpredictable come Sunday afternoon,” said the 33-year-old Australian.

“It’s very difficult to know how it will unfold until basically the first 100m tomorrow. We’re still very, very optimistic.”

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who won the opening race in Bahrain, is third on the grid with last year’s Melbourne winner Jenson Button fourth.

Reigning world champion Button felt that position could not have been bettered in his second race for McLaren.

“During my last run the balance of the car was not as good as earlier in qualifying, so that was a little frustrating,” he said.

“I maybe lost a tenth (of a second) because of that but I wouldn’t have been higher up on the grid. We are currently getting the maximum we can from the car.”