More hometown heartbreak for luckless Webber

FOR Mark Webber, it was as close as you can get to the Australian Grand Prix podium without having champagne sting your eyes.

FOR Mark Webber, it was as close as you can get to the Australian Grand Prix podium without having champagne sting your eyes.

With the sun hanging low over Melbourne and his enduring Formula One career, he tailed Lewis Hamilton for 17 desperate laps. His Red Bull was the faster car, but not fast enough to find a way around Hamilton's silver McLaren on the tight streets of Albert Park.

At the finish, half a second separated the nose cones of the two cars.

It was Jenson Button first, two-time world champion Sebastian Vettel second, Hamilton third and Webber fourth.

For Webber, whose only view from the Melbourne podium was a glimpse 11 years ago when he finished an unlikely fifth in an unloved Minardi and Ron Walker ordered a second presentation, it was another hometown heartbreak. Had he driven yesterday's race to run fourth in the opening round of the Formula One season on any other track on the world, it would have been considered a good day's work.

From the first corner, when contact with Nico Hulkenberg's Force India left the Australian with a damaged rear wing, Webber needed all his experience just to stay in the race. Yet with this year and next to run on his Red Bull contract, time is running out for him to take something away from a race that has frustrated him over so many years.

Not so Button who, like Michael Schumacher at his peak, has taken a shine to the Albert Park track.

This was his third win in four years in Melbourne and there was not a lap when he did not appear to have complete control.

A Formula One season billed as the most competitive in years has delivered in its opening race, with McLaren, Red Bull and, surprisingly, Ferrari all armed with fast cars. "We all think this year is a very special year in Formula One," said Button.