Mat Coch writes:

While Red Bull looks set to streak away from the front of the field this weekend the battle for the minor positions is promising to be as frenetic as ever, with as many as five teams within just tenths of one another.

It could almost be by design that the layout of the Melbourne paddock lumps the midfield protagonists together, Renault, Sauber, Williams, Force India and Toro Rosso lined up one next to the other, hemmed in by access roads. Of course the order of garages and therefore hospitality suites was determined by last year's championship, which goes to show the order of things hasn't changed too much during the off season. If anything, perhaps Ferrari should be on the midfield side of the access road, rather than enjoying its prime location near the head of the class.

"I said to my team you could be either P16 or P9 because everyone is really close to each other," said Sebastien Buemi after yesterday's qualifying session.

Buemi's team enjoyed a comparatively strong qualifying, reaching the final phase for the first time since 2009 while Jaime Alguersuari put his car on the fifth row. While not startling performances the results mark an improvement in the team's fortunes from a year ago when both cars were eliminated in the second session. It's an encouraging performance from the Red Bull junior team.

"Before the session, I expected to get this result," said Giorgio Ascanelli (pictured), Toro Rosso's Technical Director. "We are just a sniff ahead of Force India, who I expect we will be fighting all year. However, I am not going to cry about Adrian Sutil's misfortunes! When analyzing the result, we have to consider that Williams had a difficult session, while Sauber is solidly ahead of us.

"I think we can be really happy with what we did today," agrees Buemi. "The team did a very good job and I don't think we would have been able to do much more than this so I'm really delighted with the results."

"The team did a great job during winter to produce a fast car and this is the final result of that," says Alguersuari. Catching the eye of both Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton during winter testing, Toro Rosso will no doubt be hoping to spring one or two surprises as the season unfolds.