Formula One:Sebastian Vettel will start from pole for the second successive race as he led a Red Bull one-two ahead of local favourite Mark Webber in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix. The German had first place wrapped up by midway through Q3 when he clocked a time of one minute 23.919 seconds at the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne.
Webber, desperate to claim a maiden victory at his home grand prix, was just 0.116secs behind in second.
Bahrain GP winner Fernando Alonso will line up third on the grid in his Ferrari while reigning world champion and Jenson Button starts from fourth in his second race for McLaren.
But of surprise was former world champion Lewis Hamilton's failure to progress from Q2 and the McLaren driver will start from 11th on the grid.
"It is a great result for both of us and for the team," said Vettel. "It is a long race tomorrow but looking at qualifying today, I think we did well coming in with the car and improvements we made.
"The result says it all and I am looking forward to tomorrow."
Ferrari's Felipe Massa, who finished second two weeks ago, lines up fifth while Nico Rosberg got the better of Mercedes team-mate Michael Schumacher to secure sixth with the seven-time world champion starting from seventh.
Rubens Barrichello once again made it through to Q3 in his Williams and takes eighth on the grid with Renault's Robert Kubica and Adrian Sutil of Force India starting ninth and 10th respectively.
While clouds had gathered above Albert Park for qualifying there were certainly some focused around Hamilton as his disappointing performance capped a troubling couple of days.
The 25-year-old had been confident of bettering his drive in Bahrain where he qualified fourth as he bids for a second win in Australia in three years.
Things looked promising when he set the fastest lap in free practice yesterday but then found himself in trouble with police after performing stunts in his Mercedes road car outside the circuit.
With heavy traffic in the middle of the pack certain to be a factor tomorrow, Hamilton will undoubtedly face a struggle to climb through the field but he stressed last night's incident did not affect his performance.
"It was something you learn from," he told BBC1. "I don't think it particularly affected today.
"I wasn't fast enough. I feel I got everything out of the car, I just really didn't have any more grip out of the tyres.
"It is unfortunate but I will just have to have a good race tomorrow hopefully."
Behind Hamilton is Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi with Force India's Tonio Liuzzi 13th. Pedro de la Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi start from 14th and 16th with Williams' Nico Hulkenberg splitting the Saubers.
Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari improved by one place from his qualifying performance in Bahrain and starts 17th while Renault's Vitaly Petrov failed to progress from the first elimination stint along with the expected six drivers of the three new teams.
The Russian will line up 18th on the grid while Lotus duo Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli will start from 19th and 20th respectively.
Virgin Racing's Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi - who are unlikely to be able to finish the race due to a design flaw with their fuel tanks - are in 21st and 22nd place while HRT's Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok line up as they did in Bahrain in 23rd and 24th respectively.